UF-2 The Seeds of War
by Barbie Lee
Edited by Catherine Linda Michel
Copyright April 2002

"His breath reeked of gin and spirits. It was probably the only mouthwash he ever used. He smiled, and his yellow teeth looked bright against the dark recess of his yawning gullet. His lips were thin. Probably from seldom being pulled into a smile. He held his knife to my throat. “I’m going to sell you to the slavers.”

Over the shoulder of the first man, I could see another man coming across the room. He was holding up a slave collar. A cruel device, it was guaranteed to make the person it was placed on, submissive. Voice controlled, the master didn’t need a transmitter. All the master had to do was give a command. If the slave didn’t respond the slave collar would give a cruel shock. I had seen slaves drop to the floor writhing in agony when they didn’t respond to a command from the master. Those slave collars were a product of the government for use on prisoners. Pirates and slavers found a new use for the government prisoner collars."

And off we go in Book two of UF-2 The Seeds Of War. Strap yourselves in and suit up for action in deep space. Pirates, slavers, alien races and war loom ahead for Brandy, Sherry and all the universes and dimensions. Can our heroes and heroines stave off war and win out against the worst that space has to offer? Well here we go!

Hate, greed, desire for someone’s property, a lust for wealth, or for power... wars are as old as life. All it takes is one person who can convince others to believe they are destined to own that which can be taken by force or by con.

That one person lets others die, while trying to achieve his or her goal of undeserved power and wealth. Either by desires to follow, or being forced to fight because the masses are in favor of war, there are those who die because one person wanted wealth or power, or they hated the other person. In the beginning, it’s always the poor, the uneducated, the lower classes who follow the evil dream. Soon nations and worlds are at war because one person convinced a few it was their right. In the end many die, both good people and evil ones, and those who were mislead by one evil person.

May God have mercy on us all as we march to war to defend ourselves, or our friends freedom. Why do we have to fight to live without the repression of an over burdening government dictatorship, or to protect that which is ours. Sometimes peace comes at a terrible price. If we did not pay the price for peace and freedom, the price for dictatorship would cost much more.

It seemed like yesterday, yet it was forty two years ago I met Toni and married him, or took him as my mate. I was born human. My mate was Pash. The Pash were of the cat species, not the human species. Their race was also several millennium older than the human species.

After Toni and I married, I bore him two children. Both of them were girls. Lavess was the oldest, Toness the youngest. Both of them were turning into beautiful young ladies.

Lavess was more like her father, even tempered and always a joy to be around. Toness was more like me. She had a temper and was quick to anger. Thankfully, it never lasted very long. Toness was also the one who would act before she thought things through. They both had their father’s cat qualities. They could walk across the room so silently that one had to be watching to know they were moving. They also had their father’s cat strength.

Luckily, I got my bluff in on them when they were toddlers. They never seriously challenged me later on in years. Don’t get me wrong, they did test me in jest or for fun. I was grateful they didn’t inherit my human side and act like brats or juveniles. Oh, they pulled pranks alright, but certainly nothing cruel or mean.

In all my years living with the Pash, I never saw a mean or cruel one. They had disagreements and fights all right. They were capable of killing if provoked. I finally understood that being civilized didn’t mean one didn’t strike back if it was necessary. Sometimes, other life forms needed to lose some blood, since that was the only message those forms understood.

I loved Toni, our daughters and the Pash. Over the forty six years we had been together, Toni had taken me to see a few thousand other species, spread out among the galaxies. I was so lucky to have married Toni. He was my soul mate. I could have never loved another. Sometimes life worked out. Sometimes it didn’t... My own species, humans, were acting... Well, they were acting human and wanted what didn’t belong to them. It was times like this I really did wish our daughters had morphed me into a Pash as they grew inside me.

“You don’t have to go.” Toni was watching as I dressed.

“It’s my duty. We made a treaty with them. We promised that, if they didn’t destroy the human species, their galaxy would not be settled with humans.” I pulled on my boots and picked up the black bustier from the bed. I wrapped it around me and turned my back to the droid. He fastened the bustier. The black microskirt was next and then, the wide, black belt around my waist.

The Pash droids were an engineering marvel. They looked like two vertical sticks with two horizontal sticks, and they hovered instead of walking or rolling on wheels. The droids were able to manipulate molecular flow. My bustier was a seamless one piece, once the droid bonded the material together. For better or worse, I was also bonded into that bustier, along with the rest of my clothes at the same time.

The idea I was dressed until a bot helped me undress bothered me at first. It took some getting used to. Mostly in the mental department, as I was geared more toward zippers and fasteners.

Females of other species who married Pash, morphed to look like Pash as their babies grew inside them. It was the sharing of life forces between mother and child. Because Sherry and I had been contaminated by the Trag DNA virus, we were still human in a lot of ways. We didn’t change physically in outward appearance, like other Pash wives. The Trag had sent their bio- balls to our outpost where I was captain. Most of the men and women on UF-2 had been infected. Much to my dismay, Sherry and I were two of those unfortunate souls. At first I would have gladly wiped out the Trag for what they did to the other humans and me, but time has a way of changing one’s perspective. Eventually, over time, instead of hating the Trag for what they did to me, I was thankful.

The male Pash seeded their mates with two eggs. Those two eggs absorbed the eggs of their female mates, Then their female mates would gave birth to two males. The male Pash carried only two eggs and they mated for life. Again, because of the Trag DNA, both Sherry and I gave birth to two girls, not boys. Toness and Lavess changed me, but it was mentally. I became telepathic. It was hard at first, as my mind picked up the thoughts from Toni and the girls. It was a clutter of noise, more like being in a room full of people talking. Eventually I learned to focus my mind to one or more mind thoughts. It was similar to listening to one person in a room full of chatter. Tune out the background clutter and focus on the person speaking.

The Pash looked a lot like humans, except for a couple of things. They had yellow cat eyes with vertical pupils. They also had cat strength and were slim creatures. I guess I had become used to the extra long canine teeth all of them had. When I first met Toni and he smiled, I was kind of taken aback. Over the years it got to where it seemed normal. At times I kind of wished I had fangs like my husband and our daughters, but it wasn’t in the cards.

“You’re making it an official visit then?” Toni picked up his sword and blaster off the dresser.

“Yes. I want the Trag to know we support them. We gave them our word. The Pash have never broken a treaty. I am not going to be the one to do so now.” The jeweled dagger went on my left, on the belt. I was also armed with another weapon, one only I could use. It was the Queen's Sword. Retrievable only by my hand, it was invisible. Until I laid my hand on the sword, it was in another dimension. There was also something else about the Queen’s Sword that made it different from any other sword, or weapon, I had ever seen or heard of.

The blade of the sword collapsed any molecular matter it touched. Anything it touched changed into a black hole, but since the mass wasn’t big enough to maintain a black hole, it rebounded back out in x-rays, gamma rays, invisible light, etc. The rebound was too quick to see, but the disappearance of the object when the blade touched it, was startling.

The Pash were divided into clans. Whether it was luck or fate, I had married Toni, who was head of the Pash. Walking over to him, I put my arms around his neck and pulled him in as I gave him a kiss. “I do not deserve to be so happy. You are the most handsome male of all. Thank you for loving me, my Lord.”

Toni studied me with his big, yellow cat eyes. “You grow more beautiful by the day. I’m so in love with you, my Queen.”

Our daughters were at Meliss and Sherry’s house the next galaxy over. I guess every galaxy was the ‘next’ galaxy over wasn’t it? The Pash were star travelers. They figured out polarity drive a long time before humans had come up with the idea that there was something faster than light speed. The other thing about the Pash polarity drive was, they had figured out how to put something live inside that ship. Humans weren’t even getting close to something similar to polarity travel for cargo carriers, much less human transportation.. Humans hadn’t figured out how to balance the energy fields around the drives so energy bleed inside the ship didn’t kill the life forms it was transporting. So far humans were creating a black hole event where everything disappeared as their ship launched. I was positive that, if the Pash had figured it out, humans would also. Maybe in a few thousand or possibly a million more years?.

Toni walked with me out to our little starship. It was the same ship Toni used when he first visited outpost UF-2. He had suggested we get a bigger starship, but I had emotional attachments to that little craft. In all honesty, it was a little one-person ship. Two or more could ride in it with someone sitting in the aisle.

As I walked up to the ship, I touched the side, an opening formed in the side of the ship and a ramp appeared. It was accomplished through molecular flow. That was something else the Pash had figured out several millennia back. Turning to look at Toni, I wrapped my right hand around the back of his neck. “I will see you in a few hours.”

He shook his head. “I should be going with you. I don’t like the idea of you going by yourself to check out how widespread the humans have encroached into the Trag galaxy.”

“I’ll be fine. I dealt with these kinds of humans while I was on UF-2 and I know how to handle them. You must convene the Council for a vote on the treaty. I need to do some fact finding to see how bad this situation has become.” I gave him a kiss and then walked up the ramp. Taking my place at the console, I could see concern on Toni’s face as the ramp flowed back up into the side of the ship.

Jumping dimensions and distance was not an easy task, in spite of how fluidly Toni did it when he was piloting the craft. I pulled up the star charts and picked the Earth and Trag’s dimension. Then I pulled up the two billion light years I would have to travel to get there. When I touched the star chart hologram in front of my face, it changed to the Trag galaxy. I had jumped distance and dimensions back to the Trag and Earth dimension. The little Pash starship polarity drive had already taken me there. Like the Pash bots, the starships were marvels of engineering

I had heard there were humans on the Enren planet in the Trag galaxy. I pulled it up on my star chart, touched it and I was looking at the planet in the hologram. There were lights and artificial heat coming up from several spots. Obviously human settlers and their allies. I was sure they had detected my starship by now.

I touched the brightest light in the hologram and was immediately above the outskirts of the illegal settlement. From there on down to the ground I guided the little ship by moving my fingers across the console. The ship could have auto parked a lot quicker and gentler than I could manually fly it in. Sometimes I felt like doing it without the AI (artificial intelligence) computer built into the ship design, but I needed more practice before I could get that good.

Pushing the console out of my lap, I opened the side of the ship and walked out before it closed. The settlement looked about like what I expected. Slavers and pirates lived with no regard for hygiene or order. They had few rules. Take what you can, and the one with the most power at the moment rules all the rest.

I felt them approaching before they spoke. “Don’t shoot her. Keep your eye on that ship. There could be others. Is she armed? I see a dagger on her side. Looks expensive.”

Holding up my right hand, open palm, I was looking at the one who seemed to be leading the other six. “I didn’t come to fight. Why are you trespassing on Trag worlds? Don't you know it’s against the treaty the Earth Alliance signed with the Trag?”

He walked up in front of me and took a measured look as he mentally undressed me. The way I was dressed, that couldn’t take too much brain power. It was probably more than he possessed. Pirates and slavers didn’t ever strike me as being too intelligent.

He glanced from me up at my ship. “What kind of ship is that? I’ve never seen one like that before. Where you from? You alone?”

“I’m alone. You didn’t answer my questions. You’re trespassing on Trag planets. Don’t you know the Trag aren’t going to allow this? Have you ever met a Trag? Did you know they like to dissect humans and their allies?” I was hoping to jump-start his brain about what he was facing. I should have known better.

He laughed as he glanced around at the other men. “We aren’t afraid of a few Trag. This planet is rich in energy crystals. Len is bringing in slaves to mine them for us. We’ll all be rich.”

“You will be dead if you don’t leave immediately. The Trag will not accept humans in their galaxy.” I looked at the other men to see if I was getting through to them. Again, I should have known better. These kinds of men understood brute force, not dialog. It was as if their minds had never evolved up the evolutionary scale.

The leader reached for my hair. I slapped his hand away with my left hand as I sidestepped to my right and pulled my dagger. I was looking at the business end of five phasers. Maybe I should have asked Toni and a few dozen friends to come along? Somewhere in a small part of my brain, I remembered I'd always had a few dozen soldiers along when I happened to meet these kinds of people. Now wasn’t a good time for my memory to be reminding me of the details though. Obviously pirates and slavers weren’t the only feeble minded ones at this meeting.

“Feisty aren’t you? I like that in a bitch. I don’t know where you came from, but you made one hell of a mistake, dropping in here like you did.” He slowly reached out and took the dagger out of my hand, daring me to do anything stupid.

He pointed at two men. “Look the ship over and see where the door is. I want me a looksee inside that thing when we get through with the bitch.”

He walked around behind me and gave a hard push in my back with his hand. “Let’s go see what Len wants to do with you.”

When he pushed me, I stumbled forward before I gained my balance. They marched me into the settlement. We passed a couple dozen buildings before they muscled me into one of the larger geo-dome buildings. One of them shoved me in the back and I stumbled across the room. I was getting damn tired of their constant pushing. Inside, I counted four men and two alien Churters, not counting the three men that had marched me there.

By a table to my left, one of the men stood up and walked over to give me a thorough examination. “Who the hell is this?”

The man that had taken my dagger smiled as he stared at me. “We have a present for you, Len. She dropped in on the outskirts. As far as I can tell, she’s all alone.”

“Lady, you are either the dumbest bitch in the universe, or the bravest.” The man called Len stepped in front of me and grinned.

Right now, I had to agree with him. I was the dumbest. I was going to see if I could pull this situation up out of the pits. “I may be your guardian angel. You’re trespassing on Trag property. If you don’t leave, you’re going to end up dying. I know what the Trag do to their enemies. It’s not pretty. I can’t tell you in strong enough language that you have no options, except to leave this planet and this galaxy.”

I knew the man behind me was going to grab my arms before he touched me, but those other men still had their phasers pointed in my direction. I couldn’t fight all of them when I was unarmed myself. That was when the one they called Len pulled a knife and stepped up in front of me. I figured he was the leader of this band of miscreants.

His breath reeked of gin and spirits. It was probably the only mouthwash he used. His yellow teeth looked bright against the dark recess of his yawning gullet as he smiled. His lips were thin. Probably from seldom being pulled into a smile. As the man behind me held my arms, Len put his knife point up against my throat. “I’m going to sell you to the slavers.”

I could feel the point of the knife pierce my skin, and warm blood trickled down my neck. Len looked pleased as he stared into my eyes. “That’s so everyone knows you’re my slave. I’ll drop some markers in you so you can be found if you try to run away.”

Glancing down at my breasts before looking back into my eyes, his eyes gleamed with lust. “I’m guessing a bitch with your looks is already used merchandise. A little more use won’t bring down the value any.”

Reaching out, he grabbed my left breast in his right hand and squeezed. The pain was so sharp I almost dropped to my knees. Involuntarily, I groaned. I wanted to strike back, but the guy holding my arms wasn’t my only problem. My mind kept reminding me of the phasers still trained on me.

Len stared into my eyes as he squeezed harder on my breast. “You were wanting to hit me. Control, I like that in a slave. Since we are going to be intimate, we should be on first name basis. I’m Len. I prefer you call me Master. I already know your name, Bitch!”

I couldn’t stop the tears of pain that trickled out of the corners of my eyes. Finally he turned loose and that caused more pain from the release of the pressure. I sucked in my breath.

The other man who was behind me, holding my arms, laughed. “I think we should sell her services here, first. With a body like hers she should be sharing. She’s prime stuff.”

Over Len's shoulder, I could see another man coming across the room. He was holding up a slave collar. A cruel device, it was guaranteed to make the person it was placed on, submissive. Voice controlled, the master didn’t need a transmitter. All the master had to do was give a command. If the slave didn’t respond, the slave collar would give a cruel shock.

I had seen slaves drop to the floor, writhing in agony, when they didn’t respond to a command from the master. Those slave collars were a product that the government used for prisoners. Pirates and slavers had found a new use for the prisoner collars.

Len stepped over to the side, as another man stepped up in front of me. His eyes were devouring me like I was a slave on the auction block. He reached up over my shoulder and pulled my hair away from my neck. He was rough and intended to hurt me. He succeeded.

Stepping up beside the man standing in front of me, the third man opened up the collar to slip it around my neck. I brought my right foot up with all the strength I could manage, and it caught the first man right between the legs. A look of shock and then pain flashed in his eyes. He turned loose of my hair. He was dropping to his knees when I jumped back and tossed my head back at the same time. I was hoping to catch the man holding my arms in the face or under the chin with the back of my head.

Unfortunately, he was ready and bobbed his head to the side. I only managed to bump back against his chest. I could see that slave collar coming at my neck and I tried to kick the guy holding it. He dodged my kick, as the collar snapped around my neck.

“Turn her loose. She’s not going anywhere now.” The man behind me backed away.

I lunged for the guy who had placed the collar on me. An electric shock unlike anything I had ever felt stunned my mind and my body. I fell to the floor, crying and writhing in pain. Even though the shock was only the smallest microsecond, the pain lasted for over a minute before I could regain use of my muscles.

The man who had placed the collar on me, stared at me with lust in his eyes. “Get up!”

Slowly, I managed to get to my knees and then to my feet. “YOU BASTARD!”

The men were laughing as they holstered their weapons. They knew that slave collar could control me better than any threat from any phaser. The man shook his finger at me. “Your name is 'Bitch.' From now on you will call me Master. He nodded toward the other two men. You will also call Chad and Len, Master. When I tell you to do anything you will answer, Yes Master, before you do it.”

“Drop dead!” I screamed, and then I fell to the floor crying in pain. The collar reminded me who was Master.

The third man had managed to find his feet by the time I regained control of my body. I could read his mind. He was thinking of the things he was going to do to me for what I had done to him.

“Get up, slave.” He was staring at my breasts.

I started to get up. Again I received that terrible shock and went to the floor. They all smiled at my pain. “You didn’t say, Yes Master. Now get up Bitch.”

“Yes Master.” I slowly made it to my feet expecting the slave collar to knock me to the floor any second. In my years of living with the Pash, I had forgotten what hate was. These humans were giving me a real strong dose of remembering.

The man I had kicked was rubbing between his legs as he stepped up in front of me. “What’s your name?”

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell them my name. “Brandy.” Again that terrible shock and I was writhing on the floor.

He didn’t give me a chance to get up as he leaned over and grinned. “What’s your name?”

I sure wasn’t going to say Brandy again. “Winters.” And again that pain. What was I not doing right? Then it came to my pain wracked brain. “Yes Master, Brandy.” And again the pain.

All of them were enjoying seeing me writhing on the floor. I was positive I wasn’t going to be able to last much longer.

He leaned down and put his hand between my thighs. “Okay Bitch, what’s your name?”

“Yes Master, my name is Bitch.” Involuntarily, I cringed expecting the shock that didn’t happen.

“She figured it out. That’s good Bitch. Most of the bitches don’t get it right until we tell them.” He stood up. “Now get up Bitch, and tell me your name.”

“Yes Master.” I managed to push myself up off the floor and stood. “Yes Master, my name is Bitch.”

Len motioned the others to give a little room. “Bitches need to be properly trained. Over behind the bar you will see slave rings. Go fetch and bring a handful of them back over here.”

“Yes Master.” As I turned to obey his command I wanted nothing more than to kill him. That slave collar they had slipped on my neck was cruel beyond words. When I was Captain of UF-2, I thought they were a great idea for controlling prisoners. I guess one’s concept of good or bad depended on whether one was wearing one or not.

I walked behind the bar and saw a stack of body rings. I knew what they were for. As if the slave collar wasn’t enough, these men were sadistic enough to want their slaves wearing body-piercing rings in all places imaginable and unimaginable. My mind was going full tilt trying to figure a way out of this mess I had dropped into. I picked up a hand full of the rings and walked back to the group of men. Holding up the rings I waited for Len to take them.

Len nodded. “You are going to make an excellent slave. Show me where you want them placed.”

“Yes Master.” I didn’t move because I didn’t want them placed anywhere in my body.

“Now that’s not very co-operative, Bitch. You know all the places they need to be inserted, so show me now.”

“Yes Master.” I had two choices. Either hold a slave ring over every part of my body I thought these guys would think a well dressed slave would be wearing one, or have that slave collar knock me to the floor and then follow their command. I held a ring up to my nose and each breast. From the look in his eyes, I could see Len thought that was a start, but it wasn’t going to satisfy him.

“The gun is beside the rings. Bring it.” Len commanded as he stared at me.

“Yes Master.” I turned to go get the gun laying beside behind the counter with the rings. It was the insertion tool. A ring was placed in the jaws of the gun and it was placed up against the body. When the trigger was pulled it clipped the ring and drove it through the flesh. Then the ring was spun inside the jaws of the gun and welded back together, along with changing the molecular structure of the ring. One of man’s better ideas no doubt? Made of Vadim alloy, the ring was indestructible once it had been inserted. There was no way to remove them except through surgery.

Some of the slave rings were no more than what they seemed to be, simple rings. Others were a product of a sick mind. When inserted into flesh they spawned tentacles, which spread throughout the body. As if that wasn’t enough, if another ring was inserted, the tentacles would spread and interlock, each successive ring spreading and interlocking as it was inserted. It was unbelievable what man could do to man in their search for power over another. One individual looking for control over another, or a world looking to control the galaxy, it was the same. Ultimately it was control or domination they desired.

I was praying the rings these slavers had weren’t the ones with the tentacles. Those were almost impossible to remove unless the slave was butchered like a slab of beef and then stuck back together after the rings and tentacles had been peeled out. If it was a nose ring or an earring then the slave could forget about removal. Tentacles spread throughout the brain assured the slave owner that the slave would die before the rings could be removed.

There was no doubt in my mind why he was doing this to me. Making me go after my own torture device was added pleasure to their cruel minds. I walked behind the bar and picked up the gun. I walked back over to Len and held it up.

“Load it.” He was enjoying his control over me.

“Yes Master.” I dropped the smallest ring I could find into the jaws of the gun.

Len shook his head. “No Bitch, I think you need something a little more you.”

He reached over to my left hand and picked up a ring that was six inches in diameter and an eighth of an inch thick. “These are you. Load it.”

“Yes Master.” I could hardly believe he thought that ring would go in any part of my body, much less any of the places he was thinking.

“Where do you think the first one should go, Bitch? Show me.” He was waiting along with the other men for me to inflict self mutilation.

My mind was going into overload as I was praying for a way out of this mess. “Yes Master.” How long did I have before that collar hurt me? There was no way out as I held the gun up to my left breast.

“Take off your clothes.” The man standing to Len’s left commanded.

“Yes Master.” I laid the gun and rings down on the table in front of me. With my right hand I reached up behind my back as if I was going to remove my bustier top. I started to wrap my hands around a sword handle no one could see. If my hand touched the Queens Sword, it was summoned from another dimension. Even though it was still invisible, I could feel the hum in my body as my hands got close to the handle.

Toni’s mom, Lass was the prior owner of the Queens Sword. After I accepted Toni as my mate, I inherited the sword, along with the title of Queen, Lass gave me lessons in handling the sword. I hoped the years of practice under her guidance were going to pay off.

The collar knocked me to the floor. It was quicker than my reflexes. I had no idea how it could know I was going to try and destroy it.

The slavers were surprised to see me drop to the floor in pain and then it was funny as they started laughing. Len shook his head. “Get up Bitch.”

“Yes Master.” Slowly I managed to find my feet again.

The man who was holding my dagger touched the point of it with his left index finger and blood trickled out of the prick. “DAMN! That’s sharp!”

Len glanced over at the man, as blood dripped on the floor. “Use it on the Bitch if she doesn’t ditch the clothes.”

Looking back in my direction, Len nodded. “Well?”

“Yes Master, but the slave collar won’t let me put my hands behind my back.”

Len shook his head. “Damn device must be set on extra sensitive. Control, set to minimum. Okay Bitch do it, but I warn you, if you try to move against one of us you will be knocked on your butt again.”

“Yes Master.” I cleared my mind of what I intended to do as I focused on an imaginary zipper running down my back. I reached up over my back for a sword handle that was yet still in another dimension. I was thinking ‘zipper up,’ as I brought the sword up.

As soon as I started to bring the sword up it shifted to this dimension. Now it was most certainly visible to everyone. As I brought it up I sliced through the middle of my neck with it. It was too late for them to react to stop me. Attuned to my molecular makeup, the sword would never hurt me but it collapsed molecular matter on everything else it touched. The sword never really passed through my body. The blade shifted back to another dimension where my body was. To those who were looking at me it seemed as if I had passed the blade through myself. The slave collar disappeared when the sword touched it.

“WHAT THU...” Len was staring at what he couldn’t believe. His slave was armed and no longer wearing a slave collar!

The men on my right were clawing for their phasers when I planted my right foot and two fisted the sword in a horizontal arc, waist high. They disappeared as the edge of the sword touched them. I kept on turning and caught the man behind me who was reaching for me. Like the first two, he disappeared. Len was half way up with his phaser, but I wanted him alive. I did a half step in his direction as I spun to my right and jumped. I planted my boot up against his skull. His shot went wild as his lights went out. He was down and out for the moment.

I still had three men and two Churters who wanted me dead. I stepped to the side as a phaser barked. I sidestepped, tucked, and rolled toward the shooter as two more shots went over the top of me. I was looking up at the man who was desperately trying to get me in front of his weapon. Pushing up off the floor with my left hand, I thrust my sword into his belly. He disappeared. Springing to my feet, I rushed the two men who were stupid enough to still be sitting, while trying to draw their weapons. Though both of them had their weapons out of their holsters, the table held them to a disadvantage. They had to bring their arms back and up to get past it.

The table between us disappeared as my sword touched it. The advantage was mine, as I knew what would happen when the sword touched the table. They were too slow in making good of the opportunity and failed to aim their weapons quickly enough. I swung up at a slant catching the two still seated. They were gone. The Churters had seen enough and decided they wanted reinforcements before they took me on. They were racing for the door and more help. I beat them there. Their momentum carried them within reach. It was over for the moment.

As I walked back over where the leader was lying on the floor I picked up one of those slave collars off the bar. He was coming around. I squatted down and snapped the slave collar on his neck. “I am your Master. Get up.”

“Fuck you.” He wrapped his hand on the collar and, when he couldn’t get it off, he tried to lunge for me. He screamed in pain as the collar shocked him.

“When I tell you something you will answer with yes. You will not talk unless I tell you to. Now get up.”

“Yes.” He got up off the floor, glaring hatred at me.

I picked my dagger up off the floor where it had fallen after the guy who was holding it disappeared. I slipped it back in the sheath on my belt. “We are going to walk out to my ship. You disobey me and that collar will make you wish you hadn’t. If we run into any men along the way, you will tell them it’s okay. At my ship there are two men. You will send them back here. If you don’t act normal and they get jumpy, I’ll take care of them myself. Do you understand all this?”

“Yes.” If looks could have killed, I was a dead woman.

“Good. Let’s walk out to my ship as if we were old friends.” I slipped my sword over my back and it disappeared. Reaching down, I picked up one of those phasers off the floor. If trouble started again I wanted a little more reach than what my sword gave me. I gave myself a mental kick for not being prepared for these kinds of men, for not wearing a phaser when I left home, and for being plain stupid. My years living with the Pash had lulled me into a false sense of complacency. I vowed I would never again underestimate the evil in humanity.

In spite of his problems, Len stared at where the sword should have been. “Wha…”

The collar knocked him to the floor. I shook my head when he finally stopped writhing in pain. “I said you couldn’t talk unless I told you to. Get up.”

“Yes.” Slowly, he got to his feet.

“Collar, don’t let slave touch me. Let’s go to my ship.” I closed in beside him, knowing he couldn’t lay a hand on me. The slave collar would make sure of that.

“Yes.” He walked out the door with me as if we were old friends.

I saw three men headed our way. “And I can get you those parts for the mining bots from the Nebula Brud galaxy. If we can agree on a price and a time that is. You think that would be a fair trade?”

“Yes.” He did good as we passed the three men.

“I thought you might be agreeable. It’s quite a shocking experience isn’t it? It appeals to me more and more after thinking about it.” I almost laughed as we walked out of the settlement.

“Yes.” He and I both knew I was talking about the slave collar he was wearing.

We were within sight of the two men guarding my ship. “Stop and shake hands with me like we had agreed on a contract. Collar let him shake my hand.”

“Yes.” He turned to face me and held out his hand.

“If you try anything, I’ll kill them and tell that slave collar to teach you obedience every three minutes.” I took his hand and shook it as the two guards walked toward us.

I saw the fear in his eyes. He knew I could and would leave him to a cruel teacher as the slave collar repeated the pain every three minutes. “Yes.”

“Good, then we can do business together. Tell your men it’s okay and walk me to my ship.” I turned loose of his hand as the other two men stopped in front of us.

“Yes.” He turned to his men. “It’s okay.” He walked past them as they started to ask what.

The fact their leader was wearing a slave collar never registered in the men’s minds. Obviously, they were used to seeing people wearing a slave collar. The fact their leader was wearing one never clicked inside their brain.

As we walked up to the ship, I touched the side. The side flowed out into a ramp. I turned my attention back to the man. “Listen very close to what I’m going to tell you. You and all these others are trespassing on Trag property. They love dissecting animal life forms. Humans are on their number one list to pull apart piece by piece.

The Earth Alliance is letting you settle here, hoping you will cause a war between the Trag and the Earth Alliance. They don’t care about you any more than the Trag do. Your deaths will solve a few pirate and slaver problems for them. They are in a win-win situation. They get rid of you, and your death means they can take the Trag planets they want after a few million soldiers die.”

“Yes.” He knew he had to answer.

Reading his mind, I knew I wasn’t getting through. He didn’t believe it and didn’t care. I shook my head. “That slave collar you are wearing is a joke compared to what the Trag will do to you. I would choose a slave collar over ending up in the Trag’s laboratory. Your friends were lucky, they had a quick death. Go back over to your settlement. You will not be able to remove the collar. Anytime someone puts his or her hands on it to remove it, you will be taken to task. Collar do not respond to anyone but me.”

“I’m going to give you one last piece of advice. I have no idea how many lives you have destroyed. If I was still working for the Earth Alliance, I’m sure my superiors would be diplomatic and feign shock to a report that humans were in the Trag galaxy. They might also make a token gesture of asking you to move on. I don’t have that much diplomacy left in me. I have no respect for slavers and pirates. You deserve the same fate as those whose lives you have destroyed. If we ever meet again, I’ll kill you. Now go.”

“Yes.” He had hate in his eyes as he turned to walk back to the two men waiting for him.

After the altercation with the slavers I had an idea. The Trag were next on my meeting list. I had to be careful though. The Trag had no love for animal life. With the pirates and slavers trespassing in their galaxy they were especially hostile toward humans. I had a lot of human in me. I pointed the little starship toward the Trag home planet, Oblick

The Trag meeting went better than I expected, mainly because of the telepathic abilities my daughters had infused in me. Trag were good at handling mind thought, fair at handling Pash, and poor at speaking English. Years back, Tony explained how Trag communicated. They were plant life, not animal. The Trag were empathic and telepathic long before they managed verbal communications.

Soon after the Trag meeting, I was star jumping again. I was headed back to the Pash dimension, a couple billion light years from the seeds of war germinating between humans and Trag. The Pash had built their main city, which was not their capital, Avar, in space. Actually Avar was four times the size of earth’s moon in area, but it was flat rather than being round like a planet. The city orbited Ecss like an artificial moon. Ecss was a lot like Saturn.

Pash also lived on Ecss with the aid of gravity stabilizers. Otherwise, the gravity of the huge planet would be too much to bear. After parking at the pad, outside the conference building, I found Toni in council, making plans for what seemed to be an unavoidable war. Stepping into the conference room, I walked up beside him.

Toni gave me a hug before returning his attention to the sixteen Pash sitting at the conference table. “We agree? If it comes to a vote, and it means war, we will honor our treaty with the Trag? The Earth Alliance has millions of ships it can commit to the battle. We will be out numbered better than one hundred to one.”

After he stood up, Meliss looked at those around him. “We can not and will not hide behind our dimensional capabilities. We know it’s a matter of time before humans figure out polarity travel for their life forms. Will they figure out dimensional travel? How long will we be safe after that? A million years? Ten million years? No, we must make the humans understand they can not make and break treaties as it suits them.”

Meliss took a long look at me before he continued. “Sherry, has informed me she believes she can get support from among the humans. Even if it’s only a couple hundred thousand ships, it would be a help.”

It was one of those impossible situations. I didn’t want Sherry trying to organize the clones. It was a moot point. She was the only one who could. “I know what she’s thinking. There are those who have been bred and designed by the humans and are looked on as meaningless life forms, even if they are human themselves. It will be risky trying to contact and organize them. It would mean death to her if she is captured.”

Meliss nodded. “She understands the consequences if she’s caught. I am neither for, nor against her in this decision. However once she starts I will give her my full support and help her in anyway I possibly can.”

A hint of a smile crossed his face for the briefest of moments. “You, better than anyone, should know Sherry doesn’t change her mind after she decides on a plan.”

Unconsciously, I closed my eyes as I remembered a different life on a space station named UF-2. Sherry gave me advice over the years and she was never wrong. Although she was never commissioned in the military, she was my best friend and my confidant while I was stationed on that frontier port.

I never did understand why she spent ten years of her life there with me. She could have gone anywhere she wanted, any time she wanted. Most any place would have been a thousand times better than UF-2, but stay she did. I would be eternally grateful. I would probably never know why she stuck it out with me.

Toni got dead serious. “It’s agreed. We meet at Vell in two days. Call a war council and bring it to a vote.”

Vell was the Pash capital city. I knew why the meeting was going to be there. To make it official. The meeting would be either a declaration of war, or an adoption of hands off and let the Trag handle the humans on their own. I knew the purpose of this meeting at Avar, at this time, was to make an unofficial decision. In some ways the Pash lived a very black and white life. There was right and then there was wrong, with very little gray area in between. After living with them for the past forty two years, I knew what we were headed for. Deep down inside my heart there was no doubt of the outcome when it came to a vote. Unlike humans the Pash didn’t make and break treaties as it pleased them.

The meeting was over. I wanted to talk to Meliss, but he was quickly gone. Wrapping my arms around Toni’s neck I gave him a kiss. “How do you think they will vote if it comes to war?”

He sighed as he studied my eyes. “They will vote for honoring the treaty.”

“Let’s go talk to Sherry and Meliss. I want to know how she’s planing on contacting the clones without getting herself arrested for sedition against the Earth Alliance.” I was pulling on his hand, urging him to walk out to the ship with me.

We arrived at Sherry and Meliss’s home minutes later, even though it was a galaxy away. It no longer surprised me how quick the Pash starships jumped time and distance.

Sherry met us at the door, as Toni and I deboarded the ship. “I felt you coming, and don’t try and make me change my mind. We need all the help we can get, and then some. The Earth Alliance is going to outnumber us better than a hundred to one.”

Toni had spent years teaching me how to bury my mind thoughts so others couldn’t read me, but I usually didn’t bother. It was a mental gymnastics exercise and normally I didn’t care who was hearing what I was thinking. Sherry had picked up my free thoughts and she was right. I intended to try and stop her. Thinking about it, this wasn’t strictly between Trag and humans. This was a moral issue about right and wrong. Humans should be involved against any wrong, even if it was a treaty with plant life forms. Humans liked the idea of a treaty, when it was learned those plants could possibly wipe out the human race. Now, greed had taken the place of honor. Humans wanted to ignore the treaty as they settled in the mineral and energy rich Trag galaxy.

Sherry backed up from the door. “Come on in. Meliss hasn’t returned yet. I imagine he is working to get the word out about the meeting in two days.”

It didn’t escape my attention that Sherry was wearing a floor length, golden yellow, gown. Because she was a product of the Trag genetic engineering, Sherry was well endowed with an ample bust, tiny waist, and abundant hips. Meliss liked his sexy wife to wear clothes that showed off her figure to the max. Like myself, and a couple thousand others on UF-2, Sherry had been contaminated with the Trag virus which carried a specific DNA code. After the change, she could have walked into any Trader Outpost and been their number one show girl.

There was a blessing in that Trag virus, along with the curse. Sherry and I both agreed that the blessings outweighed the curse. She married Meliss and I married Toni because of what the Trag virus did to us. We each gave birth to two girls which was a first for Trag mates. Again it was because of the Trag virus. Up until Sherry and me, Pash mates only gave birth to males. Sometimes there’s a silver lining in that black cloud.

Sherry walked ahead of us into the living room and motioned for Toni and me to find a seat in one of the chairs or on the divan. She sat down in one of the big cushioned chairs and turned her attention toward me. “I plan on leaving when Meliss returns home. Should be in a couple hours. There is an outpost in the O’Ryan universe where many of the clones pass through. I can make initial contact there.”

“You’ve been there?” Sherry’s past wasn’t something I knew anything about. I knew she was a clone herself. She was also the most intelligent person I had ever met.

She shook her head and her golden earrings tinkled. Reaching up with her right hand, she pushed her long red hair back away from her face. “No, it wasn’t a place I ever considered visiting. I didn’t need anything they could provide and I had nothing to offer anyone as helpful information.”

“I’ll go with you.” I could feel her protest before she said it. “You need someone to guard your back. Who is the least likely person to do that without looking like they were guarding you? Me, of course.”

Sherry looked at Toni and then me. “There is no need. I can...”

“No you can’t. I tried that same trick by myself already today. It’s no good wishing you had brought a friend along when you are up to your armpits in pirates or slavers. Wishing doesn’t make them go away.” I was determined I was going with Sherry, even if I couldn’t stay more than a couple days. I would have to return in two days to be at the meeting when the Pash voted whether to go to war or not.

Sherry was quiet for a long time before she spoke. “If you’re determined, I don’t guess I can stop you.”

Toni turned to look me in the eyes as he reached for my right hand. “I’m coming too. It may be for only half a day, but I’m coming.”

I had never seen Toni angry, but when I was Captain of UF-2 I did see what a man looked like after he had pulled a phaser on Toni. It wasn’t a pretty picture. I was glad he made the offer. “Thanks, but let’s not go together. I would rather the locals didn’t connect you with Sherry and me.”

He nodded in agreement. “I’ll go in first then. Ten or fifteen minutes ahead of you and Sherry.”

I was pulling on Toni’s hand as I rose off the couch. “Sherry, give us thirty minutes. Meet me in space far enough from the outpost they won’t be picking us up on the sensors. You have the co-ordinates, or do we fly around the O’Ryan universe looking over outposts?”

Toni’s ship picked up extra looks as it appeared on the pad outside Durus Nine. Polarity drive was instant travel. It was as if the ship wasn’t there and then it was. There were more looks as two Pash walked into Rims Traders Post.

A typical traveler’s watering hole, it was busy with life forms who looked death in the eye each day as they traveled out into the vastness of uncharted space. When they returned alive from exploring, they wanted to let off built up tensions and have a couple years of fun in one or two days before they set off again to cheat death or find it. The law usually looked the other way, or it didn’t exist in these kind of places.

Meliss motioned toward an empty booth. “Let’s take that one.”

As Toni and Meliss were walking toward it, a huge man stepped up in front of it. “This is my booth. You want to sit here, then you have to pay me.”

Toni gave the man a hint of a smile. “Are you the owner of this place?”

The guy nodded yes. “Sure. You ladies want to sit in my booth for free, then I have a couple men who would like to buy your drinks.”

Toni glanced at Meliss and gave a wink. “That would be nice, but I’m afraid someone is confused. We aren’t ladies.”

“You look like women. I have a couple girls who that like that kind of guy. You buy them drinks and the booth is yours.” His mouth curled up into a false smile.

Meliss took a step toward the man. “I believe you have everything wrong. We aren’t ladies, we aren’t butch, dyke, or gay, and this isn’t your booth. Go back to your friends at the table. This conversation is over.”

“The hell you say!” He was dropping his hand to his phaser on his hip.

Meliss’s hand came across the man’s face. Meliss had his claws out. The guy was spun around to his right as he flew into the empty booth.

Up until that moment the bar had been a low roar of voices and sounds. It was as if there was a master switch in the universe and all sound had been shut off. It was instantly deathly quiet. All eyes focused on the three men.

Chair legs were dragging on the floor as his friends at the table were rising to pull weapons. Before they had found their feet, they were looking into the business end of the huge blaster Toni carried on his hip.

Toni shrugged his shoulders as he held his aim. “If your weapon clears the holster you’re dead. One or all three, makes me no difference.”

From across the room a woman’s voice was heard. “Boys, if you ain’t ever seen a Pash, you’ve met one now. They move quicker than greased lightening and have the strength of four men. If you ever heard any of the old tales about them, figure most of it was the truth rather than exaggeration.”

The men looked into Toni’s yellow eyes and vertical pupils. Their own eyes growing wider in response as it registered on their brains. The one closest to Toni was slowly moving his hand away from his weapon. “Oh shit...”

The three men hesitated, knowing the situation was out of their control. Spacers didn’t survive the grim reaper by being stupid. Drawing a weapon when one was already pointed in your direction was stupid. Drawing a weapon on a legend was beyond stupid. They had heard the stories told about Pash, even if they had never met one. One of them slowly motioned with his left hand toward the body in the booth. “Can we have Greg? If he’s not dead then he needs medical.”

“Sure.” Toni slid his blaster back into the holster as he backed up from the booth. Meliss stepped off to the other side.

As the men rose from the table and walked over to pick up their friend, Meliss pointed toward the booth in the corner of the room, where a man was extending his arm across the table. “If you plan on using that needle gun you have up your sleeve, I suggest you take your best shot right now. If I sit down and you are still pointing that thing in my direction, I’ll kill you.”

The arm stopped moving as the guy was swallowing. Looking around, he pulled his arm back across the table.

Meliss nodded in his direction. “Smart move.”

“Holy father!” The men had pulled the big man out and rolled him over to pick him up. Attached to the guy’s face by a strip of skin, his ear was lying on the table. The skin on the left side of his face was peeled back to his nose. A pool of blood was on the table where his face had been. One of the men pushed the man’s skin back as best he could.

Meliss glanced at the guy as they picked him up. “He’s lucky I didn’t want to hurt him.”

As the spacers carried their comrade out of the bar the babble picked back up. There was a difference though, as most everyone, humans and aliens, kept glancing over toward Toni and Meliss. Everyone was trying to tell some of the old stories they had heard about Pash.

A multi armed bot rolled over to the table, cleaned the blood off, and then rolled away to clean another table, as it dutifully carried out its single minded functions.

Meliss and Toni slid into the booth as they pulled their blasters and laid them on their lap. Some of those spacers in that bar were either drunk enough, or ignorant enough, to want to kill a Pash because they were a legend.

A reptilian female walked over to the Pash. “What will it be boys? You here for a little fun and games, or to see how the lower life forms live?

Meliss recognized the voice as the female who had announced to the spacers that they were Pash. He glanced over at Toni and then back to the female. “Two frozen drey will be it, unless you can point us toward a repro lab experiment.”

She gave Meliss a sharp look as she shook her head. “I’ll get the two frozen drey.”

After walking over to the bar and talking to the reptilian bartender, she picked up a tray and placed three flasks on it. She walked back over to the Pash and set the tray down as she slid in beside Tony. “I’m Vin. We don’t advertise clones in here. Is it business or pleasure you are seeking?”

Toni held out his hand over hers. “Strictly business. We are looking for help.”

“Help?” Vin looked dubious as she rolled the palm of her left hand up under Toni’s fist.

He dropped ten gems and two gold coins into her palm. “Humans are trespassing in the Trag Galaxy. It could lead to war.”

The gems and coins disappeared into a pocket on her skirt. “You looking for mercenaries, or what?”

“No, just honest people. The Earth Alliance made a treaty with the Trag and now are ignoring it.” Toni watched the cold spill out of his flask as he pulled it over in front of him.

“And you think the clones will fight for nothing because you ask them to?” Vin looked at Toni and then over at Meliss with suspicion.

Meliss studied the woman sitting beside Toni. She was a Monta, her heritage was of the reptilian family. She had long lashes over red oval eyes. She was either a product of genetic engineering, or serious plastic surgery. Montas didn’t have eyelashes and their faces were longer. Vin had a lot of human looks in her features. Obviously she was designed, or shaped, to please the human traffic that passed through the outpost.

“You’re a clone.” Meliss said it without feeling in his voice. He didn’t want to make their first contact angry.

Vin stared at Meliss for many seconds before she answered. “Yes, I am. Was that a guess, or have you met natural born Monta?”

Toni gave Meliss a slight nod. “We have visited Agus-Sse, your home planet. Your facial features and figure are different from those we visited.”

She reached up with her left hand and touched her face. “Humans have a desire to make everything they meet into an image of themselves. The closer aliens resemble humans, the easier it is to accept us as useful, or at least a step above ignorant beasts. Yes, I’m a genetic product of the human labs. I worked here for several years before I found out Montas don’t have breasts or a small waist. I thought I was normal until then. What’s your point?”

“The point is, you hear a lot about what is going on among the clones. Do they still talk about a rebellion? If they are, how do we contact them?” Toni turned in the booth so he could give Vin his full attention.

She shook her head. “How do I know this isn’t part of an Earth Alliance trick to find and destroy any potential threat against them?”

Meliss gave her a nod of his head. “I think you forget where we are. All you have to do is stand up and yell we are part of the Earth Alliance. Everyone in here would be trying to kill us. There is a second problem, when did you ever hear of Pash teaming up with the Earth Alliance? We tolerate the species. Some of us have taken humans as mates. Not all humans are bad, and not all clones think ill of the Earth Alliance. If you are happy with what the genetic labs did to you, then most likely my friend and I will not walk out of here alive.”

Vin held rolled her hands over and looked at them. “Happy with what I am? I’ve accepted it. I’m a genetic mess, but I’ve accepted my life. I can never get pregnant, lay eggs, nor live like a Monta or human. The traders that stop by tell me how beautiful I am. I know they are starved for any kind of female relationship. I give them what they desire and they leave, promising me they will be back to marry me when they get rich. They won’t ever get rich. I know that.”

Vin’s eyes showed great sadness as she looked at Meliss. “I’m a freak, designed for pleasing men. I’m very good at it. I guess I’m not anything more than a pet. The person you want to talk to is a woman who goes by the name of Dora. She comes in here from time to time. You’ll be more likely to catch her in a little café on the other side of this settlement. If she has anyone with her, give them time to leave. A lot of the ones she deals with sell information to both sides.

It had been a long time since Sherry and I had walked into a trader’s post. Sherry was one step ahead of me. She was wearing a metalic gold bustier, black jacket, black skin tight pants and high heeled black boots. Her long red hair was caught in a ponytail and cascaded down to her diree. She was wearing a pistol on her right hip and a sword on her left. As she walked into the barroom, she received more than her fair share of catcalls and instant offers to visit the backroom or someone’s spaceship.

I was right behind Sherry. My outfit was a white satin blouse with sheer, billowing, gossamer sleeves. My pants were black and I also had on high heeled black boots. I had a big wide black belt around my tiny waist. Fastened to the belt where the big silver belt buckle was, and in the middle of the back of the waist belt, was another belt dropping down on my right hip to a holster slung low on my hip. The bottom of the holster was strapped to my leg, just above the knee so it wouldn’t bounce or move when I walked. The jeweled dagger was on my left side, riding high on my hip in the sheath. The sheath fastened so the dagger handle tilted forward so it could be quickly and easily drawn. I had pulled my hair into a ponytail too. In case Sherry and I got into a fight in the bar, I didn’t want to have my hair in my eyes. My shoulder purse was small. I carried it on a gold chain over my left shoulder. As I was right handed, I wanted my right arm free without excess baggage.

Vin turned her head to see what was causing all the excitement in the bar. “New blood. They don’t look worn out. If they came here looking for adventure, they are going to be severely tested, staying alive and away from the slavers. Slavers will kill to get their hands on anyone who looks like them.”

Toni leaned over and whispered. “They can take care of themselves. The blonde killed six men and two Churters this morning.”

Vin’s head snapped around to look Toni in the eyes. “You’re kidding? She looks like a slaver’s dream machine…., You know her?”

“She is my mate.” Toni’s eyes were gleaming.

Vin’s face showed disbelief. “And Red?”

Meliss gave a hint of a smile. “Sherry is my mate.”

“They look human.” Vin glanced at the two women before turning her attention back to the Pash.

“They are.” Meliss responded.

Vin turned to study the two women as they walked across the room to an empty table. She was trying to figure out how anyone who looked like those two women could be so deadly. She decided it proved the old adage, looks can be deceiving.

Sherry and I knew Toni and Meliss were in the bar before we ever walked in. We didn’t want to acknowledge we knew them, as we were hoping to double our chances of making contact with the clone underground organization.

Before we had walked halfway across the room a couple men were already following us to an empty table. Sherry and I never sat down as the men split up and walked over to opposite sides of the table we had stopped at.

“You need something?” Sherry looked at the man to her right.

I glanced in his direction. He was medium built and had a few scars on his left check he'd never taken the time to have removed. His clothes were well worn, as was the phaser he carried on his hip. I turned my attention back to his companion. He was a good match, except for the scars. In my mind I classified them as traders or movers of merchandise. They didn’t quite have the look of slavers or pirates, but they were only a small step above. I guess it was a very important step.

The man to Sherry’s right pulled the chair back. “What you ladies looking for? Tom and I can help you find it. You want to explore the edge of space? We know spacers who are outbound. They would be glad to have company such as yourselves. Or if you are looking for...”

“I don’t think you have what we are looking for. Why don’t you use your retro jets and park your ass back where you just left.” Sherry gave him a disgusted look, as her left hand dropped down to the handle of her sword.

The guy was too infatuated with Sherry’s body to take the hint or notice where her left hand was resting. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you are looking for. Tom and I might have it.”

Shaking her head Sherry sighed. “What is it I’m saying that you don’t understand? You need it in clearer language? Drop dead. Get lost. You annoy the hell out of me and remind me of Wubbe vomit.”

In spite of my best efforts not to, I chuckled. “Wubbe vomit? I guess they do, don’t they?”

“Glad to see you find us amusing.” The man pulled back the chair and was starting to sit down.

I knew what was coming. I reached up over my back pulling my sword the same time Sherry drew hers. Sherry was too close to the table and had to take a step back as she brought her sword out of the scabbard. She made a sweep with it under the chair seat. She cut the back legs out of the chair. Caught off balance, as he was more down then up, the man went over backwards with the chair as the chair legs fell outward. He sprawled out on the floor with what was left of his chair.

Because the Queen’s Sword didn’t have to be powered into what it touched to collapse molecular structure, I didn’t have to position for the swing as I brought it up over my head and down to cut the chair on my right. The man named Tom wasn’t as far down into the chair when it disappeared under him. He didn’t go down. He stumbled into the space vacated by the chair as he caught his balance.

I took a stance with the sword ready to swing if he made any threatening moves or went for his weapon. Tom’s eyes turned to two white balls of fear. He understood how close to dying he had come. He was also smart enough to not challenge me.

There was a solid thunk when Sherry stabbed the point of her sword between the guy’s legs who was lying on the floor. “Only two chairs at this table. I guess that means you need to find someplace else to sit.”

The man turned white as he looked down. It was with a cough when he managed to speak. “I think you’re right. Sorry, my mistake. We meant no harm.”

Pulling her sword out of the floor, Sherry gave a slight nod of her head as she took a stance, ready to attack if the man wanted to press the fight. It was unnecessary as the man found his feet. Both men scurried away as quickly as they had arrived.

Vin had been watching, along with everyone else in the bar. “Those girls are deadly. They handle those swords as good or better than any bounty hunters I’ve seen.” She looked over at Toni. “The chair by the Blonde disappeared when her sword touched it. It’s been a long time since I heard stories about the Sword of the Queen. I’m guessing I just saw the sword in action?”

A hint of a smile crossed Toni’s face. “It’s possible.”

FROM THE EDITOR: Barbie and I thank all of you for your comments and kudos, and want to remind you that comments and kudos are the only payment authors receive here at Top Shelf. We are very pleased that you are enjoying this story and we thank you for all your interest.

UF-2 BOOK 2 CHAPTER 3
BY BARBIE LEE
EDITED BY CATHERINE LINDA MICHEL

Vin turned her attention back to the sword the blonde was holding and was carefully watching to see what the female did with it.

Sherry slipped her sword back in its scabbard before she sat down and pulled her chair up to the table. I had a problem with my sword, I really didn’t want everyone in the bar see it disappear. Sitting down, I was extra careful to make sure I didn’t touch anything. Last thing I needed was to touch the table and have it wink out of existence. I figured most of those in the bar were too slow to see the chair disappear. Without the added distraction of a fight, and because of the large size of the table, it would be very conspicuous if it suddenly wasn’t there. After I sat down I slid the sword under the table and turned loose of it, knowing it was once again behind my back.

Vin was watching as the sword the blond was holding disappeared. “The old tales were right. She does handle the Sword of the Queen.”

She studied Toni’s cat eyes. “If she is your mate that would mean you are the leader of the Pash wouldn’t it? Go talk to Dora. She can point you toward what you seek. Tell her Vin sent you. It wouldn’t hurt to mention you and your mate are... King and Queen?”

‘Wrong bar, we need to go to the café at the other end of the post. I don’t feel any telepaths in here. I do sense a couple individuals who are sensitive enough to feel mental thought.’ Meliss sent Sherry and me a mind thought.

Vin slid out of the booth and then leaned back over the table to look Toni in the eyes. “If you hurt Dora you might as well kill me, because I’ll do my best to kill you, even if you are a King.”

If anyone is with Dora when you find her, wait until they leave. Most of those she deals with are pirates, slavers, spacers, or those like them. Most of them are also merchants of information. Dora collects information. She passes it on to those operating on the fringes of the Earth Alliance. She has saved most of them from getting caught and going to a penal colony at some time or another. A lot of clones owe her their lives. They would look unfavorably on anyone who might hurt her.” She straightened up, turned, and walked over to a table to take an order before going up to the bar.

As Toni and Meliss slid out of the booth they were putting their blasters back in their holsters. Toni dropped a couple coins on the table to pay for the drinks. They never acknowledged Sherry and me as they walked across the room and left.

The lady who had been with Toni and Meliss walked up to our table. “Hi, I’m Vin. May I get you ladies something?”

“A frozen d...”

“Klip.” Vin completed the sentence for me as her eyes looked over toward the booth where Meliss and Toni had been sitting. Still on the table were two frozen drey. The robot was headed toward the table to clean it.

I understood the message. Two groups of strangers walk into a bar and order the same non alcoholic brew. It wouldn’t take a mental giant to add two and two. “Klip would be fine for us.”

Vin was back almost before she left. She leaned down over my shoulder to set the flask in front of me and whispered in my ear. “Two men will be over to pick you ladies up and escort you out of the bar. It will look like you found dates, rather than following the Pash.”

I passed the message to Sherry as I reached into my purse and retrieved eight coins. “Thanks.”

When I dropped them into Vin’s hand she closed her fist and shoved them into the pocket in her skirt. “Be real careful while you are here. You’ll have slavers or their friends following you. Either one of you would fetch a million credits or more on the slave block. The slavers will be dying to get their hands on you two.”

A frown crossed Sherry’s face before she responded. “I guess we will have to make sure to send any slavers we run into, back to the recycle plant won’t we.”

Vin acted like she was wiping the table and didn’t look at either one of us. “The law is bought and paid for, like everything else on this post. They get you in jail and you will be sent to the slavers. Trust no one.”

“Even the two you are sending over?” Sherry said it before I managed.

“Two million credits will test anyone’s loyalty. You two are walking retirement packages to anyone who can kidnap you.” Vin straightened up, turned, and walked back to the bar.

‘This is worse than I thought. I hadn’t counted on you being a prize package. I only figured on you dodging the Earth Alliance. Staying out of the hands of slavers, pirates, or anyone who thinks you are the golden goddess wasn’t in my mind.’ I sent Sherry a mind thought as I checked the room for possible trouble.

Because she was facing me she was able to keep an eye on the part of the room I had my back to. ‘Where I’m going after I make contact will be safe. Clones know what it’s like to be treated as merchandise. Slavers are hated by most clones. They kill them when the opportunity arises.’

I didn’t like the idea I would have to leave Sherry behind when I returned home but her mind was made up. Reaching across my waist with my right hand I inched my dagger up out of its sheath and up into my hand. I turned it upside down and laid the blade up under my wrist. Toni’s mom, Lass, had taught me a lot of things besides how to act like a queen. Pash didn’t start fights, but they most certainly ended most of them.

Sherry nodded, knowing what I had done. “Company, two men coming up behind you.”

Sherry and I rose out of our chairs. I turned to look at the men approaching. Escorts or trouble?

One of them held out his hand. “We’ve been looking for you. I guess we should have been more definite where we were going to meet. Come on, we’re late.”

“Sorry, our misunderstanding. We’re ready if you are.” I checked for hidden weapons before I turned and put the guy on my left, as I wanted my right hand free and his in a bind if these weren’t the men Vin lined up for us.

Sherry did the same thing to the other guy as she stepped up beside him. He reached over and put his arm around her waist. They walked out ahead of us.

We were outside the bar before Sherry’s escort dropped his arm and put a little space between her and him. Sherry’s right hand dropped down on her blaster. The movement wasn’t lost on the man. He held up his right hand with an open palm. “Easy does it. Vin said your mates were looking for clones. If you think I’m stupid enough to try and kidnap a Pash’s mate, then you’re wrong. Although I’ve never met a Pash I’ve heard enough stories to know I don’t want to be on the wrong side if I do.”

Sherry had her hand resting on her blaster. “Words are cheap and worthless. Thanks for walking us out. We can make it from here.”

The one who was with me slowly moved to put a little distance between us. “If I did anything foolish would you kill me with the knife you have in your right hand, or would you shoot me?”

Turning to face him I slid the dagger back into its sheath. “Distance is the deciding factor.”

He nodded. “I figured as much. Your mates went to talk to Dora.” He pointed toward the other man. “He’s Dan, I’m Sandy, we will walk with you to the café where they are meeting.”

Looking over at Sherry she agreed. “Okay, but you stay on my left and you don’t get behind me.”

A smile spread across Sandy’s face. “That’s a plan I can live with.”

“I feel them too.” Sherry glanced in my direction, as we passed one of the darker buildings.

Raising my left arm to keep Sandy at a distance, I took a quick look behind us. “We have company. I don’t know you, so keep your hand off your phaser. Sherry and I will take care of the problem.”

Sherry had her blaster in her right hand in less than the blink of an eye. “Six? In the third door to the building ahead.”

“Eight... nine, three behind us came out of the bar. They must have been on their communicators the minute we walked into the bar. Glad we didn’t stay longer or there might be a couple dozen slavers by now.” I pushed Sandy over beside Dan to the left of Sherry as I compacted our little group.

Sherry had stopped and waited. “How you want to handle it? I take the six in front and you the three behind us?”

I pointed my finger at Dan and Sandy. “You two even think of drawing your phasers and you’re dead. The slavers are getting nervous since we stopped.”

I took a quick look at Sherry. “Why don’t I hose down the doorway and see if I drive them back into the hole they crawled out of, or see if they flush?”

Sherry backed up a couple steps to keep Sandy and Dan in her view ahead of her. “Go for it.”

The Pash war scream I let out as I ran toward the doorway where the slavers were waiting in ambush, wasn’t the cry Toni tried to teach me. I was positive it still curdled the blood of normal humans who had never heard it. I could feel the slavers hesitate in confusion, wondering why their prize packages hadn’t stepped in front of them by now and what was that awful noise?

One of them stepped out to check for the two women they wanted to kidnap. It was a fatal error, as Sherry nailed him with her deadly aim. I had shot at the pirates at the same time, but running and shooting wasn’t my thing. What I never counted on, was my war cry bringing up those from behind. A phaser blast heated the air and part of the building front to my right. Someone had their weapon on stun and I was the intended target.

I dropped and rolled right, knowing he would be adjusting his aim to his left. The air where I had been standing rippled and warmed from a second phaser blast. I took a snap shot back down the street behind Sherry, knowing my chances of hitting anything were slim to none. I wanted to make them think about hunting cover, rather than plastering my space with blasts from phasers.

Sherry’s blaster barked twice as she concentrated her attention on the five men I had my back to. I took a deep breath and waited for the men behind Sherry to regroup. It didn’t take long as one of them leaned out from behind a building and was randomly firing, hoping to hit me or keep me off balance. Years of training under Lass paid off as I focused on my target and squeezed the trigger. The second and third slavers were already exposing themselves before the first one died. They figured three weapons pointed in my direction would keep me hunkered down and unable to respond. They had taken that fatal step out as their friend died. His death distracted them as they never took careful aim. They tried to spray my position with phaser blasts. I was focused. The second one and then the third one died a quick death as two more shots from Sherry’s blaster blistered the air.

Blasters barking further down the street behind me, got my attention as I shifted position to see if we had more slavers joining the group. It was Toni and Meliss. Those big cannons they normally carried on their hips were chewing hunks out of the building where the remaining slavers were. As quickly as it began it was over.

Dan was motioning for us to hurry out of there. “The law will be here in a minute. If they catch us here, then it’s jail for all of us. You might have escaped this batch but you won’t escape again if Crus gets his slimy hands on you.”

It was a warning Sherry and I didn’t need repeated. We sprinted down the street, yelling to Toni and Meliss to run.

We kept Sandy and Dan with us when we walked into the Star’s End Café. We found a table and sat down, hoping we looked like travelers. Meliss and Toni sat facing the door. Sherry and I sat facing the other side of the room. We didn’t pull our blasters as that would have been too conspicuous. We each had a hand in our laps.

Dan leaned over in my direction. “Dora is the lady in the booth by the kitchen door.”

I relayed the information to Sherry, as she took a casual look around the room. Dora had someone with her. When the serving bot rolled over we ordered lunch while we waited.

Sandy was watching the door when he stiffened. “Crus... and I’m betting he is looking for the two women who escaped the slavers. He has four men with him.”

Sherry and I were facing away from the door, but we could feel the men Sandy mentioned. We pulled our blasters and brought them up under the table to keep them hidden. I felt Toni and Meliss do the same thing. Even Sandy and Dan had pulled their weapons.

Crus stepped into the café and scanned the room. His attention focused in at the back of the café. Two women sitting at a table on the far side of the room. Even from the back side they looked like money. It had to be them. He motioned to his men who had their weapons drawn. “That’s them.”

The café grew deathly quiet as all the patrons turned to look at the armed men in the doorway... everyone except the two women over on the far side of the room. They didn’t turn to look. Crus knew it had to be the two he wanted. They were his retirement plan. The slavers had already posted a bounty of one million credits for the women.

Crus was headed across the room where he could get a good look at the women from the front. With four armed men, weapons drawn, and two more men who had moved in from the back door, Crus never imagined anyone would be stupid enough to challenge him.

Toni and Meliss pushed Dan and Sandy back out of the line of fire as they stood up. At that same instant in time, Sherry and myself rolled out of our chairs to the right and left as we spun to face the armed men. I could see disbelief on the face of the big man up front. I guess shock would be an apt description on the faces of the men beside him.

“NOW!” Was in my mind and my ears as I squeezed the trigger. Less than one hundredth a second and it was over. Seven men were dead. The five in front of us and the two by the door leading into the kitchen.

I can’t say everyone in that café was in shock. Most of them had either been in, or seen, fire fights before. Living on the fringes of space wasn’t the place for the timid, or the bible thumpers. Those kind of people would come later and demand everyone be disarmed. For now, this part of the world belonged to the bold, the adventurous, the con artists, the pirates and the slavers.

Crus and his kind were a product of the kind of life they dealt with everyday. He may have been an honest man when he took his job as justice of the peace. I can’t say if it was the illegal money that flowed through his world that corrupted him and he wanted part of it. He had become worse than the pirates and slavers he was dealing with. Bad law was worse than no law.

I’d never be able to tell Crus he had made a mistake in going up against a telepathic Pash. Toni might not have been able to read everything Crus had in his thoughts, but it was enough.

Dora stood up and looked at the lifeless form of Crus. “That’s been needed for a long time.”

The man who had been sitting with her at the table slowly rose as he stared at the two dead bodies beside him, before he headed for the door. “I’ll be going. I wasn’t here, I didn’t see a thing.”

It must have been the same idea in everyone’s mind, as they all scrambled for the exit. Everyone except Dora and our little group fled the café. She walked over to where our little group was, as Sandy and Dan found their feet. She nodded at Meliss. “I saw you at Ferris One, about twenty four years back. I know you star travel. You and your friends might want to put some distance behind you. Crus was on the payroll of the slavers. They aren’t going to be too pleased to learn you took him off that payroll.”

She turned her attention to Toni. “I’ve never seen two Pash at the same time. Important business, or passing through?”

“Actually my business.” Sherry slid her blaster back into her holster.

Dora turned her attention to Sherry. “Oh? Traveling in the company of two Pash? I hope your business takes you on, because this place is going to become your nemesis if you hang around. Even with two Pash bodyguards.”

Dora looked me over before turning back to Sherry. “I’m betting you ladies are what this is all about. The slavers saw you arrive and they wanted you. Not often we get women who look like you two out here. Most of the women are smart enough to keep their distance from places like this. Again, I strongly suggest you keep moving. Enough money will be placed on the table to purchase a small army with one purpose. Capture you two.”

“Money has already been placed on the table, as you put it. Crus and the others were looking for Sherry and Brandy because they had killed a couple slavers a few minutes earlier.” Toni walked around the table beside me as he was talking.

Sandy had found his feet. “Dora, Vin sent them down here. The one talking is the mate of the woman. Vin said she carries the Sword of the Queen.”

“Mate? Strange? She looks human. I didn’t know Pash took mates outside their species.” Dora was giving me a closer scrutiny.

“Long story, let’s get back to why we are here. Sherry is determined to find the clone nucleus.” I pointed toward Sherry with my left hand.

Sherry picked up her cue. “Humans are trespassing in the Trag galaxy. The treaty with the Earth Alliance strictly forbids humans or any animal forms of life in that galaxy. It seems the Earth Alliance is determined to not only let the trespassers get away with it, they are covertly encouraging it, and backing it up with threats of war if the Trag harm any humans.”

“I’ve heard the rumors. Supposedly one can get rich just by dropping in and picking up a handful of gems with little or no mining. Those kind of rumors would convince any pirate worth his salt to take the risk of prospecting in the Trag galaxy. I haven’t met anyone who has struck it rich yet, but rumors like that do tend to pull in everyone.” Dora put her hands on her slender hips as she studied Sherry. “Why the clones and why would you care about the Trag? Aren’t they a bunch of plants?”

Before Sherry had a chance to answer, Toni interrupted. “If I’m going to go see some slavers who put a bounty on my mate, where would I start?”

“You’re going after the slavers?” Dan coughed it out.

“Better than letting them come after Sherry and Brandy. Our mates aren’t the only ones the slavers have abducted, or tried to. If we take care of this now Sherry will have a little less to worry about. You know where they would most likely be?” Toni dropped his hand down on that huge blaster he carried on his hip.

Dan was shaking his head no, as Sandy answered. “They took over the Control Center by pad six. Most of the time that’s where you will find the majority of them. They can keep an eye on the spacers coming and going and what everyone is shipping. Kind of like a help yourself buffet. You like what’s moving in front of you, then you take it. If it’s not worth the trouble or it belongs to another slaver let it pass.”

“How many?” Meliss waited for an answer.

“I’m not sure. Forty or so from what I’ve heard.” Sandy figured the conversation was over. Two men going up against forty were not good odds.

FROM THE EDITOR: Barbie and I thank all of you for your interest, comments and kudos. We really do treasure whatever you might want to say about the story, good OR bad. Please remember to comment and/or kudo the story? Thank you.

“How many are there at any given time would depend on what was on the agenda. One or two would be there if everyone is out looking for your mate and her friend. Or around forty if they are all there for a meeting.” Dora added her knowledge to the conversation.

“Sounds fair. Point us in the direction and we will take it from there.” Meliss gave a quick look at Toni as he grinned.

“I’m in.” I wanted a piece of this action. “Sherry can have her talk with Dora and we can get out of the way while she is taking care of business.”

Dan gave a quick glance at Sandy. “Count us in. They will find out we were with you when you killed that first bunch and Crus. Either way we are dead men. They will drop a bounty on our heads too. There won’t be anyplace we can go and feel safe. Taking a few of them with me before I die will be a better way to go.”

Sandy shook his head. “That place is shielded. I don’t think we can make it in. It would take a Star Destroyer to blow a hole in that shield.”

Toni put his left arm over my shoulder. “Or one sword. I think we have the shield problem licked.”

“We are dead men.” Sandy took a quick glance in my direction after he said it.

“I know the expression, and you could be right.” I was laughing as I gave Sherry a wink. “I will be back in five days to check on you. If you have star jumped, leave information with Dora. If that isn’t possible, then leave it with Sandy, Dan, or Vin.”

Dora shook her head. “It's dangerous leaving information with another on this post. I suggest you call.”

A smile spread across the faces of Meliss, Toni, and myself as Sherry shook her head. “Can’t call across two billion light years.”

“What has that got to do with anything? I know you can’t call across two billion... The Pash use Polarity Drive? You traveled two billion light years from home?” Dora was in shock as she calculated the distance in her mind. Dan and Sandy weren’t doing a whole lot better.

“I’ll leave the message. You take care. This might be a game to you, but a phaser can kill you as quickly as it does everyone else.” Sherry walked over and gave me a hug.

She turned and took Meliss in her arms. “I will miss you. Be careful, our daughters need you at home.”

Meliss gave Sherry a tender hug and a kiss before he straightened up. “Come back safe. I hate to think I would have to kill all slavers to avenge any harm that may come to you.”

I don’t know if Dora or the two men put much stock in that remark Meliss made. I knew it wasn’t an idle threat. If anything happened to Sherry I was positive Meliss would spend the rest of his life hunting down and killing slavers. Pash didn’t start fights, but they sure finished most of them.

Five of us walked out of the café headed toward Control Center on pad six. The slavers on this post forfeited their lives when they put a bounty on Sherry and me. Now it was time to make them pay the price.

We didn’t go in the front door. We went in the back way, which wasn’t actually a door until I made one. Before we reached the shield, I pulled my sword and pushed it into the force field. We could hear the shield generators screaming as they overloaded when my sword sucked all the energy out of them. A bright fireworks of energy beams poured into the place where I had the sword stuck in the shield. A black hole formed at the tip of the blade and radiated outward as it collapsed the shield. Toni, Meliss, and myself had seen these results before. I can honestly say, Dan and Sandy were in total disbelief.

“Now!” I charged forward as the shield collapsed, and swung at the armored wall of the Control Center. There was a flash of light as the wall disappeared before us.

Toni and Meliss were already past me, firing as they ran into a room with only one man in it. The inside walls weren’t armored and Toni blasted the door in front of him. Meliss turned to his right and blasted a hole in the wall. Those rooms were empty as they should be. Toni ran into the next room, past the crater he had left when he blasted the door. Meliss did the same as he charged into the room through the gap in the wall.

I was right behind Toni as I sprinted for the door twenty feet away to my right. Toni and Meliss waited until I had reached the door. I was standing off to the side as I held the sword in my right hand and swung it toward the door. The door disappeared in a flash as the blade touched it. With the blaster I was carrying in my left hand, I hosed down the inside without even aiming, knowing I wasn’t hitting anyone. Dozens of phasers answered my shots. The slavers already knew something was wrong when their force field collapsed. They were waiting, and figured we were coming in the door. They poured a sweeping death of phaser fire into that doorway, guaranteed to kill anyone stupid enough to step forward.

“Crank it up.” Was in my mind. I was firing wild random shots back into the room. It was my job to make the slavers inside that room think that was where the attack was coming from. Toni and Meliss blasted holes in the walls. Toni and Meliss were at a full run when they made passages through the walls. The slavers were caught looking in the wrong direction when Toni and Meliss ran into the room, a nano second after the respective holes were blown. It was over in less than a heartbeat. The slavers were out matched.

I turned around to look at Dan and Sandy who hadn’t even made it into the room where I was. “Put up your weapons. This has already ended.”

Sandy hesitated before holstering his weapon. “Only a couple of them here? We missed most of them, didn’t we?”

Toni and Meliss walked out of the room as I shook my head. “All of them were here. You have your port back, if you can keep more slavers from moving in.”

Slipping my sword over my back I turned it loose, knowing it had disappeared. I holstered my blaster as I walked over in front of Dan and Sandy. “Hold up your right hands and I’ll swear you in.”

Neither one of them comprehended what they were going to be sworn in for, but they automatically held up their right hands.

“As an active Captain of the Earth Alliance, and still registered as Captain Brandy Winters of UF-2, I hereby do deputize Sandy and Dan as Justices of the Peace on Durus Nine. There’s a lot more to it than that, but it’s legal. You can lower your hands.”

I was looking at two disbelieving faces as they lowered their hands. “You’re the law on this outpost. It’s legal. I’ll drop the paperwork in the post log. The next cargo ship that comes by will hold your comlinks and security badges. Any questions?”

I glanced from one to the other. “If you two pick up where Crus left off, I promise to come back and personally take care of the situation. You're going to find a terrible temptation to help yourself to the money that flows by this post. You'll tell yourself it won’t make any difference if you take some. It either won’t be missed, or those it belongs to won’t report it, as they operate outside the law. Don’t do it. It’s tainted money. It will own you if you touch it. It corrupts and controls the lives of those who touch it. Think of Crus if you are tempted. ”

Staring with disbelieving eyes, Sandy dropped his hand as he shook his head. “You are joking aren’t you?”

“If you think I’m joking go take a look at the thirty one dead bodies in the next room. Deep space isn’t the place for anyone looking for a long life. Trading in slaves will shorten that life even more. I didn’t do you any favors. The slavers may want this post back. If they do, then you both are probably dead men. If they don’t, then the idea you are lawmen may keep any bounty hunters from wanting to kill you for any reward the slavers may place on your heads. Let’s go back over to Crus’s office and I’ll file that report. We need to be going. If you do your job right, this is probably the first and last time you will ever see a Pash.” I didn’t have to tell them that, if they didn’t do their job right, they wouldn’t want to see a Pash. They understood the message that wasn’t spoken.

By the time I left Durus Nine with Toni and Meliss, Sherry had already taken her ship and jumped space. I prayed she stayed safe. If the Earth Alliance had any inkling what I was involved in, I would have been court-martialed and executed. I found the double set of standards I was playing hard to believe myself. I had deputized two men, under the authority given to me as Captain of an outpost, while helping Sherry find people who would fight against that same authority. Now I was headed home to join forces against the Earth Alliance. In simple terms, I told Dan and Sandy to uphold the law while I was breaking the law. The concept would play havoc with the mind if one let it.

Two days passed, and we were leaving home again. I walked up the ramp ahead of Toni. “You drive.”

He stepped up into the ship behind me. “You sure?”

“Yes, you can get us there a lot quicker. I have to bring up the co-ordinates every time I take us anywhere.” I turned around waiting for him to take his seat behind the console.

He nodded as he moved to the console. Running his hand over the console caused a seat to form up out of the floor behind me. The side of the ship flowed back again. “You don’t take that long and besides, you will never learn if you don’t keep doing it.”

Taking my place on the seat that formed under me, I motioned with my finger for us to go. “Maybe I’ll have it figured out when I get to be your age.”

“Are you suggesting I’m old?” The side of the ship opened up again as Toni stood up.

I stood up and turned to look at him. “No, my King. I should be flogged for the mere suggestion you might be old. I was only suggesting you were sufficiently aged to be wiser than me.”

Toni started to step off the ship ahead of me. “I thought that was what you were suggesting.

We walked into the huge meeting hall together. I had been told there were approximately half a million Pash in that hall when it was filled. Today, it was filled past capacity, and more were still arriving. There were millions more Pash waiting at home, or wherever, for the result of this meeting. I could feel Meliss, and the four girls in there somewhere. Of course the girls would be the center of attention for the moment. They were the only natural born Pash females. Up until Sherry and I had daughters, no females were born to the Pash. The Pash took female mates outside their species. That was how Toni found me. I was so lucky in a lot of ways.

I walked with Toni up to the speaker’s stand. The hall was filled with voices, but not the kind most humans would ever hear or understand. It was a calliope of mind thought. It took me close to twelve years to learn how to separate mind thought in a crowd. It’s like humans learn to listen to only one voice in a room full of people chattering. Eventually, I learned to separate the mind chatter and listen in on a particular mind thought.

Toni raised his right arm up in the air and it was as if all sound in the world had been turned off. It became deafening in how quiet it was. “Humans are settling in the Trag universe. In spite of the notice to the Earth Alliance, and repeated warnings to the settlers, more humans keep coming and refuse to leave.”

“In a few minutes, our Queen will ask you to vote in support of the treaty we signed with the Trag. The Earth Alliance has betrayed the Trag by allowing this to continue without taking measures to punish those who trespass. The Earth Alliance has betrayed the Pash, as we also signed the treaty. The treaty was plain. No human settlement would be allowed in the Trag galaxy, in return for the Trag not unleashing any more bio mechanical virus on human life forms. Trade between humans and Trag was agreed upon, on the condition that those who had been infected would be in charge of the trade. That was the treaty the Trag, the Pash, and Humans signed. There have been no revisions, nor new treaties.”

Toni looked over at me. “My Queen.”

I nodded in agreement with Toni. “My Lord.”

Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention to the sea of Pash in front of me. “Your King and I have arranged to meet with the Trag, immediately after we take a vote. We hope to accomplish several things with our visit. We wish to convey to the Trag that the Pash do not break treaties. We want to meet with some of the settlers and convince them it is a situation of utmost importance for them to leave the Trag galaxy immediately, or they will forfeit their lives.”

Toni reached over and put his arm around my waist. He knew how hard this next part was for me.

I made sure my mind was clear before I started. “IF the Earth Alliance believes it has a right to take action against the Trag for killing the trespassers who refuse to leave, they may declare war against the Trag. If the Earth Alliance declares war against the Trag, they are also declaring a war against the Pash. We signed the treaty with the Trag.”

I started to say 'I know my people,' but humans were no longer my people. “I know the humans and they will risk war for the spoils of war. Toni and I have requested a meeting with the President of the Earth Alliance. We will remind him of the treaty with the Trag. We will also inform the Earth Alliance that a broken treaty and war with the Trag, means a broken treaty and war with the Pash.”

Turning my head to look at Toni, I sent him a mind thought. ‘Time to vote’

Toni squeezed me before he looked out across the sea of Pash. “The question is, do we honor our treaty, or do we let the Trag take care of this themselves? Yes is to honor the treaty, no is to let the Trag do this alone. Vote.”

We waited for the hologram generated, blue and white graph, to tally the vote. Seconds later the graph was solid blue. Not one single white showed up on the graph. I was proud of the Pash for their solid commitment to their treaty. I knew this could very well lead to war if the Earth Alliance did not pull the pirates and slavers from the Trag galaxy. How many had to die before it ended, if it began? No doubt our lives would be changed from this point forward.

Hours later Toni and I were on a starship, larger than Toni’s little personal craft. We were going to try and talk some sense into the humans, and their planet grabbing allies. There were no negotiations here. It was a clear case of 'leave the Trag galaxy or die.'

Our first stop, of course, was to visit the Trag. We wanted to reaffirm our commitment of support to the Trag and get a feeling for how bad the situation had degraded.

Toni parked the starship close to the Trag capital. I had been there many times on trade disputes. The Trag weren’t a bad species, if one could call plants an intelligent species. They just took a lot of getting used to.

This starship had teleport capabilities, and we beamed into the conference room. Toni gave me a mind thought as we faced a party of eight Trag across the room. ‘Let’s get serious. The Trag do not have a sense of humor.’

Four Trag separated from the group and walked over to meet us. “You have broken the treaty.”

I stopped several feet back from them. No matter how many times we met, I always thought they looked like walking mushrooms. They had four eyes on stalks, four arms and four legs, on a body that resembled a mushroom. Years back when we first met them, Toni told me they were vegetable life, not animal. It was a never-ending problem for me to comprehend that plants could grow to be intelligent.

Hoping to show respect, I bowed my head as I answered the Trag. “We only recently have learned of the transgressions. We have come to warn the trespassers that they must leave, and that the Pash will honor the treaty with the Trag.”

One of the Trag stepped up in front of the others. “We would be within our rights to kill them.”

Straightening up, I nodded in agreement. “You would. It may also bring war with the humans. I am sure many humans would die, but so would the Trag. You do not understand the numbers of the humans. Take the numbers of the Trag and increase them by several thousand fold. That would be the beginning of the human numbers. Even if you managed to kill several thousand of them to one of your deaths, they would still win in a war of attrition. “

The Trag looked back at the others behind him, before he looked back at me. “We should have destroyed them the first time. We will revise their DNA so they can no longer reproduce.”

I shook my head. “That won’t work. Only those that are infected will not reproduce. I know of your DNA virus. The first plan, where you were going to change all of them into females only able to bear females, could have worked. This second plan is flawed and will not work.”

“Then we will redo the first plan. The treaty was broken and is no longer valid. We are within our rights to wipe them out.” He waited.

Trag didn’t have facial expressions, so I couldn’t tell how serious his statement was. Was war eminent, or would they give us time to try and rectify the situation? “The first plan would have worked. It would have taken them by surprise. It won’t work now. They'll find one of your DNA bio-mechanical balls and it will be all they'll need to declare war. The Trag would not survive. The Pash signed the treaty along with the Trag. Let us see if we can make the humans leave the Trag galaxy, as agreed. If they do not, the Pash will join the Trag in a declaration of war against the humans.” I glanced over at Toni. That was a terrible commitment for me to make. If it came to war, many Pash would die along with the Trag.

“The Pash have never broken a treaty.” Toni was looking at the Trag, as he reaffirmed what I had said.

“The Pash are good, the humans are not.” The Trag studied me for a long time. “You will fight for the Trag? You are human. You also have reason to not like Trag.”

It was a long sigh. So long ago. I was a product of the Trag DNA virus, but now I thanked them for what I was, instead of hating them. “I am not all human. I am Pash. I was born human. That I can not change. My mate is Pash, my daughters are Pash, my friends are Pash and my home is Pash. The Pash part of me is by desire, the human part of me is by fate. I can not change my fate. I can change what I do with my life. I am Pash, I honor the Pash treaty with the Trag.”

“You fight for the Trag?” He waited for confirmation.

“No, I fight with the Trag. The Pash will not fight the Trag battles. I will try and intervene. Please let me see if this can’t be resolved without loss of life. If the humans will voluntarily leave the Trag Galaxy, before we start spilling life forces, it would be beneficial to all parties.” I started to say blood, but the Trag didn’t have blood. I was sure they would know what I meant though. They had dissected enough humans, and other life forms, to know what blood was.

“We shall wipe out all humans who settle in Trag galaxy.” He had all four eyes focused on me.

It didn’t escape me that talking to Trag was a lot like talking to a bot. The had a single purpose mindset. “You would be within your rights, but let me talk to the humans who have broken the treaty first, and see if we can get them to leave.”

“If they do not leave, they die. No human is welcome in Trag galaxy.” He waited for an answer.

“Yes, if they do not leave, they will die. You may kill the humans if they do not honor the treaty. I remind you that there can not be any dissecting of the humans or their allies for your experiments. It is in the treaty.” The problems with broken treaties are that all bets are off when one side stops following the rules. They shouldn’t be shocked when the other side does indescribable things in return.

“We will not agree to more terms. We have the right to protect Trag galaxy.” There was a definite tone in his voice.

I knew what that meant. The Trag would start dissecting the trespassers and designing viruses to wipe out the species. The Trag hated animal life forms. They only tolerated the Pash because of the treaty they had with the Pash. The Trag had captured, and dissected, Toni’s brother. The Pash retaliated with a vengeance. There was no doubt the Trag would have been wiped from existence if they had not signed a truce with the Pash.

It never failed to amaze me how contradictory life is as it moves along in time. At one time I would have killed all the Trag if I could. At one time the Pash were in position to eliminate the Trag. Now, here we were, ready to give our own lives to protect them. Some said it was Karma to go back and face the same problems in life from the other side.

“I would rather you didn’t start dissecting humans right away. Give me some time. I would like for them to leave voluntarily. You are within your right to kill them. I request you don’t make them suffer if you dissect them. Give me thirty days. I need time to contact all parties involved. We will meet with the some of the trespassers and the Earth Alliance.” I may have hated pirates and slavers, but being dissected by the Trag wasn’t the way to die, even for those kinds of life forms. I had a strong feeling the Trag were going to have a lot of lab specimens if those humans who were trespassing on Trag territory didn’t leave. I was going to do everything I could to convince the humans and their allies that they were not going to enjoy what was left of life, if they stayed in the Trag Universe.

“Thirty Earth days. Not one more.” The Trag waited.

Another Trag stepped up and set eight small cylinders on the floor before it backed away.

I glanced over at Toni as I shook my head. “This is going to get messy. I need to see Lass. I want to know what she can tell me about the future.”

“Let’s get to it. Thirty days is awfully short when you’re trying to stop a war.” Toni and I gathered up the cylinders. He touched the relay on his belt and we were back in the starship.

It was times like this that I wished Toni’s mom, Lass was still the reigning Queen of the Pash. I believed, with all my heart, that the hardest thing I ever had to do in my whole life was to commit the Pash to a war. So many lives could be lost on all sides. For what? Because of the greed of a few? If any survived they would look back, as they traded back and forth between Trag and humans, and wonder what the war was all about?

In my heart I knew that millions of lives were going to be lost. Humans had a very nasty record of making and breaking treaties as it suited them. There had to be a way out of this mess. The Earth Alliance had to understand that they could not ignore this treaty.

From The Editor: Barbie and I value your comments. We read each one and try to answer any questions you might have. Please remember that your comments and kudos are the only pay an author gets here at Top Shelf. Thank you to everyone who is reading, commenting and kudoing the story.

Our first stop after leaving the Trag was one of the human settlements on Kcagcu in the Trag Universe. Tony parked our ship close to the settlement. I could tell it shocked and scared those who saw the starship appear. I guess, in a sense, Pash starships appeared as if they were teleported out of nowhere. The polarity drive of the Pash starships meant instant travel.

The settlement was a mixture of pirates, thieves and claim jumpers. They were the human and alien flotsam of life. The scum of life, who wanted to take by force, or by crook, something that didn’t belong to them.

Toni started to transport us into the busiest building there, when I stopped him. I didn’t have to imagine what dropping both of us into the middle of a bunch of pirates would cause to happen. We would appear, and everyone in there would draw their weapon, or dive for cover. We would be dead before I could say, ‘Excuse me’.

We appeared under the ship instead. There were a half dozen men and a couple Sag aliens standing there, with their weapons in hand. One of the men motioned toward Toni with his phaser. “Nice ship. What do you want?”

Most of the men were staring at me. I could feel their minds working on several possibilities. They were thinking I was one of the women who traveled with the pirates. I guess that was the perception I would give, since I was designed to look like a pleasure slave, courtesy of Trag DNA coding.

“We wish to talk to the one who is in charge.” Toni took a careful measure of the men and weapons.

I could feel Toni doing a mind search on these men, and the alien Sag that was with them. I knew with Toni’s strength and speed he could handle them if they decided to kill us for our ship and weapons.

“I’m in charge. What did you bring me?” The man over to our left took a step forward.

Toni shook his head. “I came to trade, and offer a word of warning.”

“What do you have to trade that would be useful to us?” The man stepped up closer.

I held out my hand and opened it. Hundreds of small, round, polished jewels radiated and cast off rainbows of color. “Are you interested in precious stones from the mines of Venus?”

A smile almost spread across his face before he looked skeptical. “Venus is government controlled. No way you could get stones from there. Could you?”

“We could and did.” Always show them the pretty things that dazzle the eye and they will take it.

He reached out his hand. “Let me see.”

I dropped all the jewels in his hand. “Are we trading?”

He wrapped the jewels up in his fist. “You just did. They are mine now,”

Toni nodded. “I figured as much. I guess there is no need of telling you about what else I have to trade?”

The man gave a faint hint of a smile. He opened his hand and dumped the jewels on the ground. “Depends. We have little use for trinkets and beads out here. If you have weapons or supplies, then we may be talking.”

Toni held out his hand and a slave collar appeared in it. “The latest from the Earth Alliance.”

Leaning up to take a closer look, the leader shook his head. “Looks the same as the old ones, but I could use a few. What makes this one better?”

“It has a muscle lock command. You can freeze the slave in position.” Toni opened it up and held it out.

The leader reached over and took it. He examined it before handing it back to Toni. “Give me a demonstration.”

As Toni looked around at the men gathered, and they started backing up. No one wanted to be under the subjugation of a slave collar.

The leader pointed at me. “Try it on your bitch. I want to make sure it doesn’t damage the merchandise.”

It wasn’t all fake when I shook my head with fear in my eyes. I started to back up from Toni. He was quick as he caught my arm and snapped the slave collar around my neck. “Stand still.”

My trembling wasn’t all fake neither as I stood still. “Yes Master.”

Their leader pointed at me. “That’s nothing new. Any slave collar will make them do as they are told.”

“Freeze, slave.” Toni nodded in my direction. “Have two of your men tip her over and pick her up. She’s as stiff as a statue. She can’t move from that position until I command her to move. Want your slave to stay in a certain position? Sure, the old slave collars would stop them if they moved, but only by knocking them down with punishment. I can leave her like that for days and she won’t be any the worse for it. It has to do with the muscles locked in position. They aren’t elastic.”

Toni was right, I couldn’t move if I wanted. The leader motioned for two men to pick me up. The sensation when they touched me was weird. It felt like my body had gone to sleep. I had almost no feeling. I was stiff, not flexible, as they pushed me over and picked me up by the head and heels.

“Looks good. Toss in the bitch and I’ll purchase the collar.” The leader was satisfied the new slave collars could lock a person up as solid as if they had been cast in stone.

The two men unceremoniously dumped me on the ground. Toni reached down and removed the slave collar. I managed to find my feet. Toni held up the collar. “This is what I’m trading. The woman stays with me. Are we dealing?”

“How much?” The leader was ready to try the collar on his slaves.

Squatting down, I picked up the stones the leader had dropped on the ground, as Toni begin the process of haggling for an agreeable price. All said and done, Toni sold the collar for two thousand Earth Alliance credits. Toni tossed in a handful of radiation sickness pills, after convincing the leader that Kcagcu had spectrum radiation, which would cause blindness if not prevented.

Toni beamed us back in the ship. We were gone. We were in deep space as I turned to look at Toni. “I don’t think that’s the way to trade. Let’s go home and decide on a more secure way to bargain with those pirates before someone gets hurt.”

“I get the feeling we don’t look enough like pirates to suit those people. We need someone who is one of them, or does business with slavers. We need someone who can trade with them without causing suspicion.” Toni looked over at me and shook his head. “Sorry about the slave collar. It was the only thing I could think of at the moment.”

Looking into his beautiful golden eyes, I managed a frown. “Remember, payback always comes.”

He stood up. “We are home. You mean sorry, and an apology, are not enough?”

“What do you think?” I was going to make him pay, and pay, and... “Come to the bedroom.”

Hours later, we made the jump to UF-2, after an idea came to me. When I was Captain of UF-2, a lot of different life forms passed my way. Now was the time to put that knowledge to good use. It had been many years since a Pash starship had parked in front of UF-2. And yes, we scared the absolute bejeebers out of everyone on that station when we appeared right in front of their noses from nowhere.

We docked in bay six, after receiving permission to land. I didn’t expect a hostile welcome, but we received one as Toni and I beamed off the ship.

The Captain was there, with a full detachment of armed personnel. “What’s your business here?”

I looked at his nametag. “Captain Deric, we are on an information quest. I am looking for a spacer who passed through here from time to time.”

“Who and why? What’s your authorization?” He was seriously studying Toni’s weapon before focusing his attention back on me.

“Could we make this a little more private? Captain, I have no idea why you are on a high alert, but my bodyguard and I are looking for information. I would like to use the station’s computer for a few minutes to see if the individual I am looking for is still alive.” I had a good idea the rumors of war with the Trag were already starting to spread across the galaxies.

Captain Deric was seriously studying me. “We don’t allow non-military access to our database.”

That brought a smile to my face. “I heard there was a policy change. Please Captain, if you check your records I’m sure you will find me there. I apologize for not wearing my uniform. I didn’t want to make this an official inspection.”

A look of doubt, and then shock, crossed Captain Deric’s face. I was exactly what all spaceport captains didn’t want to see, an official inspection of their station. I had a good idea I was still listed in the records as a captain, since I had never officially retired. I was betting my name was on the active list. It would be funny to log in and request back pay. That would bring me to the front of everyone’s focus. It would be a short lived joke, for sure. Very short lived.

“Uh... your name?” Captain Deric looked serious.

“Captain Brandy Winters.” I stepped away from Toni so he wouldn’t put his arm around me. I wanted this to look official to our Captain Deric. I was positive Deric was the eighth or nineth captain to rotate to UF-2 since my departure. If he looked over the names of the previous command, my name would be there in the list. If he had studied that list he would know, Brandy Winters, logged in as Bill Wickman, was retired in the middle of a Def-Com. He would also know I had never logged out, but a new replacement came in behind me, as soon as a Military Transport ship could arrive. Two and two added up to four in the log. Brandy Winters was a head hunter who had relieved Bill Wickman, who wasn't able to handle a Def Com. That meant I had military power and political muscle behind me.

Most of that was half true. As an ex Captain I knew how it would look to anyone reading the post logs of UF-2.

“But of course.” Captain Deric turned to the guard. “Henson, Brown, follow us, the rest of you stand down.”

Captain Deric motioned with his left hand. “Let’s keep this informal, shall we? Where would you like to go, Captain Winters?”

“Captain Deric, do you mind if I wander the station with my staff? I would kind of like to do this, as you said, unofficially. No reports, I’m only a visitor.” Smiling at Captain Deric, I motioned for Toni to follow me to the lift.

“Nothing official of course. Please look us over, Ms. Winters.” He dropped the formal title to keep it unofficial. He stood where he was, as Toni and I stepped on the lift.

In two minutes, Deric would be running my description through the grinder to see if everything matched. I was surprised he didn’t ask me for an eye scan, but then this was an ‘unofficial’ visit. He probably wanted to keep it as unofficial as possible. Toni and I stopped in engineering. We could access the Earth Alliance database from there, as well as from the control deck. It would be a lot more private in engineering. Only a couple of non commissioned officers were in engineering as Toni and I walked in.

I waved at them with my right hand. “Gentlemen, I’m only looking things over. Please don’t let us interrupt you.”

“Certainly. May I ask what it is you are looking for? If it’s the visitor’s lounge, it’s two decks up and at the other end of the station.” One of the men offered, as his partner nodded in agreement.

I took a good look at their nametags. “I’m not quite a visitor, Mr. Kander. If you need conformation, please comlink your captain and tell him, Captain Winters is in engineering.”

From the look on their faces, these men were old hands at unannounced inspections. “No, of course, go right ahead and look us over, Captain.”

“Thank you. I need to access your database for transient records.” I walked over to their computer station. “Access, Captain Winters.”

“Retinal scan confirmed. Access approved, Captain Winters.” The soft female voice of the computer answered.

I looked over at the two non-coms. “Gentlemen, I need a little privacy. Please take care of your duties.”

“Yes Sir, Ma’am, Sir.” The first one answered, as he urged his buddy to the other side of the room.

I went through a list of names and found whom I was looking for, but never stopped the list as I scrolled down the names. Finally I stopped the list on one of the officers who had been stationed on UF-2 and asked for a full report on Janna Veka

“We have to look this station over so it doesn’t look like we were here only for access to the computer.” I motioned for Toni to walk with me. It was like old times for both of us, as we wandered through several other sections of the station. I bet we really did look like an unofficial inspection team. The only thing that changes on an outpost are the names and faces. The station was an old friend, well worn over time.

We wandered the decks of UF-2, reminiscing about the things we had done. We talked about the lives lost and the lives saved. Of course, all the personnel had been rotated, but the station was the same. The one glaring difference between the current regulations, and the ones I had in effect when I was Captain, was the lack of side arms on everyone. Besides the security that met us in docking, Toni and I were the only ones carrying arms. The station personnel kept staring at us, wondering why we were armed. I couldn’t believe Captain Deric would order all arms locked up. God help this crew if they ever ran into some of the life forms I had seen when I was Captain. They would all be dead before anyone could get to a weapon. I also couldn’t stop thinking about the Trag. If Captin Deric was on alert because of the mounting tensions with the Trag, he should have issued side arms to all personnel. Captain Deric was obviously not battle hardened. I was praying he didn’t find experience fighting the Trag and, of course, the Pash.

Stopping in Control, I dropped a personal message into Captain Deric’s log. ‘All personnel should be issued side arms immediately. They should have those arms at hand at all times, even when off duty.’ After all, I was on an unofficial, ‘official’ inspection.’

I bet the crew thought I was crazy as I patted the console where the Captain normally sat. “She was a good post.”

Hours later we were back in the ship. “She’s on Lazarus in the Twins Galaxies.”

“That’s a penal colony.” Toni put the co-ordinates in the polarity drive.

“You got it.” I dropped a hologram card in the computer. “That will give us her location through the tracking device they have on that collar she’s wearing.”

Toni glanced in my direction. “We are there. There is a patrol ship sitting up there, to stop anyone from doing what you are fixing to try.”

“I know. We will have one minute and twenty-two seconds to get in, pick her up, and get lost, before they get a fix on us and blast us. Can you do it?”

“I can get you there. You will either be back on board with or without her in one minute and twenty two seconds.” He brought up the hologram of the planet Lazarus in front of his control panel. “I have her located. Tell me when you are ready.”

I took a deep breath. “Ready.”

Two seconds later, Toni had the ship parked a few feet away from our target. I beamed out to where I was standing beside her. We were lucky she wasn’t in a crowd of people, or alien life forms. It could have gotten messy.

“Jeeter, do you remember Captain Bill Wickman? I’m here to pick you up, without Earth Alliance approval.” I was looking at the frightened eyes of a woman who had just experienced seeing a starship and someone appear out of nowhere.

“I remember Bill. I can’t go with you though.” She pointed to her slave collar. “You move me off this planet without decoding this thing, and it will kill me.”

“Trust me, and don’t move.” I reached up over my back and pulled up a sword that wasn’t there a second ago. I took a swing. To her credit, Jeeter didn’t move, and twenty years of sword practice paid off. When the tip of the sword touched the slave collar, it disappeared. “Let’s go!”

Jeeter pointed to the bear creature standing beside her. “My friend goes too.”

“WE DON’T HAVE TIME!” I was counting seconds and it was getting thin.

She crossed her arms across her chest. “Not without my friend. Bill wouldn’t have left anyone.”

“ALL RIGHT, BUT GET HER FUR OUT OF THE WAY. IF MY SWORD TOUCHES HER FUR, SHE IS HISTORY.” I heard Toni give me a mental thought to get my butt moving.

Jeeter reached over to her friend’s neck and parted the fur away from the slave collar. I gave a prayer I didn’t miss and took a swipe. The collar disappeared. I slipped the sword over my back. It was gone again.

‘TONI, GET US ON BOARD, AND GET US OUT OF HERE!’ There was that familiar flash of light. The three of us were standing in the middle of the ship. I had learned over the years that the flash of light was only a mental vision, not a visible flash. When solid forms of energy, such as bodies, were changed into less solid energy and beamed from point A to point B, the mental picture inside that energy beam was a flash of light. To those not inside the transport beam, it was as if someone was there, and then they weren’t. There wasn’t any flash to those not inside the beam. I guess it was more on the idea of radio beam, rather than a flash of lightening. The bot had been right when he was explaining life to me. I would find that I would never know everything.

“Are we safe?” I glanced up at Toni, who was busy running his hands over the console.

“We’re home. Honey, you were slicing it pretty thin back there. You didn’t have a nano second to spare, and what’s with the extra guest?” He stood up as he was talking.

Glancing over at our furry guest, I shook my head. “Ask Jeeter. She said she wasn’t leaving without her friend.”

The bear and Jeeter looked around in bewilderment. Jeeter asked the question that was on both their minds. “Who the hell are you, and why aren’t we moving? That patrol ship should be blasting us.”

I laughed as I remembered my first trip in Toni’s starship. “Jeeter, that patrol ship is wondering where we came from, and where we went. I’m betting they are searching for a stealth ship. Right now you’re safe. Earth Alliance couldn’t find you if they sent the whole fleet out on a search. You’re a couple billion light years from where you were a few minutes ago.”

Shaking my head, I had my own questions to ask. “What in the world did you do to get tossed into a penal colony? Did they implant you with a tracer along with the slave collar? And what about your friend? What happened to Joni, your old running buddy?”

She looked sad. “I pissed off a couple captains on a few outposts. I wasn’t kicking back any bribes as I was running in and out of the unexplored zones. I hit pay dirt on an asteroid and was going to be rich with galinium ore. Bill Wickman would have let me keep it, since I found it and claimed mining rights. He was an alright guy.”

“Tossed a few trumped up charges on you, sent you to a penal colony, and kept the asteroid for their own?” I guessed the outcome if money was involved.

“Yeah, something like that, and yeah, they put that damn tracer in me. I’ll glow like a trader’s post when I get close to any Earth Alliance forces. Same with Bunny here. She was with me. Joni was killed in an accident as we were testing the asteroid for quantity of ore. I miss him.” Her eyes turned sad with the thought of her lost mate.

I always thought Jeeter was a cutie. She had big, doe shaped eyes. Right now, she didn’t look that great. Life on a penal colony isn’t the place to keep up personal hygiene. Her lineage was of the reptile family. Her skin was a soft, brownish green. She didn’t have a single hair on her body, but that was normal for her species. She wasn’t wearing any clothes either, but that also was normal for her species. They laid eggs, not babies.

Jeeter took a hard look at Toni. “He’s Pash. I met one a long time ago. Latonvicaka was the name. We have never met before. What’s your name, and why did you pick me up?”

“My mate was the one who suggested we pick you up. You may address me as Toni.” Toni sent me a mind thought. ‘The other is a Bundadee.’

Bunny nodded. “Yes, and we also use mind thought.”

“A changeling? Is this your normal form?” I was curious, as I had read in the station logs about Bundadees. I had never met one.

Jeeter held up her hand. “Wait a second. First things first. I want to know why we were rescued, and who the heck is asking the questions? You’re human.”

Bunny put her hand on Jeeter’s left shoulder. “You’re looking at Captain Bill Wickman.”

“You’re kidding! I heard of such things but…? Kind of kinky if you ask me. Each to his or her own.” Jeeter was shaking her head.

“It’s not what you think. It wasn’t my idea, but I’m glad it happened. I hated it at first. I would never go back if I could. Jeeter, we need your help. I want you to trade with the pirates and claim jumpers settling in the Trag galaxy. It will be dangerous and could get you killed. I didn’t pull you out to get you killed. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.” I backed up into Toni’s chest. He wrapped his arms around me.

Jeeter studied my eyes and then stared at Toni. “Give me the plan before I agree or disagree. I know of the Trag. They like to dissect animal life forms. In case you didn’t pay attention in your biology class, I’m animal, and so is Bunny.”

“It’s the Trag’s biology class that is going to help you and us. I think the Pash can wash the tracer out of your systems with a trip through what they call a Field Portal System. It is a lot like their transporter. It was modified to sample the subject and remove the things in question.” I knew I hadn’t explained it very well, but it was difficult to explain.

Bunny glanced over at Jeeter for a second. “Sounds interesting.”

Nodding, Jeeter never lost her focus on me. “Sounds painful to me. You’re telling me that thing works like a giant vacuum and sucks things out of the body?”

“I guess that’s one way of explaining it. I was told it feels like being dropped out in space, and then pressurized.”

“That’s impossible. Even a wash job through a transporter won’t remove the tracer. That shit was injected in us and it permeated every cell in our bodies. It screwed up Bunny something awful. She can’t alter her appearance. I’d kill those bastards that did this to us if I could. It’s not right!” Jeeter didn’t have much of a facial expression, but her voice carried hate in the message.

I nodded. “First things first. Let’s go into the house and get you ladies cleaned up. If you want clothes or cover, let one of the bots know what you prefer.” I knew Jeeter only wore clothes when she traded with humans. I had no idea if the Bundadee wore clothes or not? When we picked them up, the only thing they were wearing was a slave collar.

We were off the ship and in the house in a flash of light. Jeeter looked around, like any careful spacer would. She made sure she cataloged all the passages and doors in her mind before continuing. “Nice place. Who does it belong to?”

“The Pash don’t own anything in a strict sense. Toni and I occupy it, along with our two daughters. If you want to say it belongs to someone, then Toni was the one who built it.” I walked up beside her as I was talking.

I pointed down the hall. “You may wish to take a bath and put on body cover before we go to the lab and see if they can wash that tracer out of your system.”

“Sure.” Jeeter and Bunny headed off down the hall.

It wasn’t that long ago when I was given the same courtesy. It was funny how life seemed to always be revolving back to the same cycle.

Lavess and Toness popped in a few minutes later. Toni came in from the study. Our daughters caught him and gave him a hug and a kiss.

“Who are our guests?” Toness always was direct. A beautiful girl, she was filling out with soft curves as she matured. She was certainly going to have more of an hourglass figure than female Pash normally possessed.

“Your mother brought a couple Alliance prisoners home after she helped them escape.” Toni looked over at me with a gleam in his eye.

Lavess turned to look at me out of the side of her beautiful golden eyes. “Mom?”

“It’s not the way your father makes it sound. Jeeter is an old acquaintance. We desperately need her help. She didn’t belong in a penal colony.” I wrinkled up my lip and gave the best ‘grrrr’ I could manage at Toni. It was a Pash warning to watch your step.

“Did she growl at me, or was she mocking our language?” Toni tried to keep a straight face, but it wasn’t possible. His eyes were smiling.

“Mom, this is the way you do it. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR” Toness made the air and walls vibrate as she gave her warning.

I shook my head. It would be a physical impossibility for me to duplicate a lot of the Pash sounds. They pushed the air up past the diaphragm in their chest, making their whole body a sounding board, not just the vocal cords like humans did. “Thanks for the express lessons. Tell your father that was what I meant. Grrrr.”

The girls looked at one another and burst out laughing. Lavess was giggling as she tried to imitate me. “grrrr?” Jeeze mom, that ought to warn everyone they are treading dangerously.”

She wiped tears out of her eyes as she looked at Toni. “Dad, did you get mom’s message, or do you want her to repeat it?”

At that, both the girls haw hawed as they clung to one another and laughed.

“Critics, everyone is a critic.” I walked over to Toni and put my arms around his neck. “Mess with me and I’ll make you pay. When I say, grrr, you better watch your step.”

“Yes my love. Although it’s not visible, I am quaking inside with fear. My bones are rattling. I am barely, by the slimmest thread, able to stand.” He wrapped his arms around me as he looked into my eyes.

“That’s better. For showing proper fear, you shall be rewarded.” I stood up on my toes and gave him a passionate kiss.

Toni returned the kiss and then turned me around so my back was against his chest as I was facing the girls. They both had looks of shame on their faces.

“Ummmm, mom and dad are kissing again. I shall never live down the embarrassment my parents cause me.” Lavess brought the back of her right hand up against her forehead as she rolled her eyes up.

“Yes, it tis such a burden to go out and face the rest of the world when your own parents are acting so juvenile.” Toness hung her head in shame as she let out a deep sigh.

“What beautiful daughters.” Bunny walked into the room. She was dressed in tan slacks, blouse, and boots. She also was wearing a sidearm, knife, and had a needle gun up her sleeve. She stopped and was looking at the girls.

Lavess, Toness, this is Bunny. Bunny, these are our daughters.” I motioned toward the girls as I glowed with pride.

Lavess and Toness nodded and curtseyed.

“Welcome to our home. We are most honored by your visit.” Lavess gave the official Pash welcome.

“You are most kind. It is I who am honored. Bunny bowed her head toward the girls.

Jeeter walked in and stopped beside Bunny. She was similarly attired, except she was carrying a rifle over her shoulder. I knew I had made the right choice in Jeeter. She and Bunny looked more pirate then most pirates I ever met. They had experience dealing with the scum of all worlds. If the Portal Wash could remove the tracer the Earth Alliance had pumped into them, then the plan was coming together.

“Make me an offer I can’t refuse.” Jeeter always was direct.

She wanted to know why I needed her help. If the circumstances had been a little different, I could imagine she would have been a pirate. Thankfully, she never slipped into that kind of life. “We need you to make contact with all the pirates and slavers in the Trag universe. You will be trading with them. Tell me what they normally like to deal in and we will try and get it for you.”

“And?” Jeeter knew there was more. Pash didn’t trade with pirates and slavers. There was a reason for the request, and it wasn’t trade.

“Girls.” It was going to be difficult explaining why I wanted Jeeter to trade with the pirates. I didn’t know if I could do it in front of our daughters. I also knew there were no secrets between us. They knew who I was. There was also the fact that, even though our daughters were out of hearing range that didn’t mean they couldn’t listen in mentally.

“Go ahead, mom. We love you.” Lavess walked over and took my hand.

Bunny held up her hand as she looked back at Jeeter. She had read my emotions and my mind. “I’ll take it from here. The Pash want us to give the pirates something extra when we deal with them. It’s a small gift from the Trag. Like all gifts, it should be given without the pirates knowing they are receiving a gift.”

She turned her attention back toward me. “Sounds like fun. Count me in.”

“You are going to be dealing with murders and cutthroats. They are the scum of life. They will kill you, or worse, if they find out what you are doing. They might do it anyway for the fun of it. I ran into some of them a few days back. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.” I wanted Bunny to know she was putting her life on the line in more ways then one.

“Bunny speaks for both of us. I don’t know exactly what it is we are doing, but Bunny does. That’s good enough for me.” Jeeter put her left hand on Bunny’s shoulder.

“We are in too.” Toness glanced over at her sister.

“NO!” I was sure I didn’t want our daughters close to any slavers. Toness always was the one to speak up without thinking. She was too much like me.

Lavess looked at Toness and then back to me. I knew what was coming before she said anything. Lavess was the one who thought things through. Her logic was murder if one was on the wrong end of her speech. “You are willing to let Bunny and Jeeter put their lives on the line, yet we can not? Are we more special than Bunny or Jeeter? Are our lives worth more than theirs because we are daughters of the parents of the Pash Clan? A life is a life. One can not be more valuable than another because of species or place in hierarchy. If you are truly Pash in your heart and soul, you understand this.”

I couldn’t stop the tears from falling, as I backed into Toni’s arms for support. I had to swallow several times to get the cotton out of my throat. “I won’t forbid you from helping. I know you would go anyway. Not out of disrespect for me or your father, but because you are Pash.”

It was all I could say as I choked up. Our daughters were going in harms way because I had brought Jeeter and Bunny to our home.

Bunny stepped up in front of me and took my hand. “We won’t let anything happen to them. I promise they won’t be harmed. They can’t trade directly with the slavers. They would become slaves themselves. They are too beautiful and not experienced enough to handle slavers, even if they are telepathic. Jeeter and I will make sure they stay safe.”

“Toni?”

He pulled me in tighter as he held me without answering. His pain was evident. In true Pash form, he was willing to let our daughters do what they knew was right. Even if it cost them their lives.

FROM THE EDITOR: As I have said many times, Barbie and I value your comments and we thank you for them and the kudos. Please remember to comment? Thank all of you who have been following and enjoying this story.

Time was of the essence. Those thirty days the Trag allotted us were steadily slipping by. We were headed for Lo One with Jeeter and Bunny. Jeeter and Bunny were both carrying side arms and knives. Normal attire for a lady dealing with pirates. Jeeter asked for and received a needle gun after she saw Bunny with one. Both ladies were carrying phasers strapped to their inner thighs, and knives in their boots. Sure it was old stuff, but sometimes it was that extra weapon that kept a person alive.

Toness and Lavess star jumped over to Sherry’s home to talk to Wasvaki and Aberombra, Sherry’s two girls. They were the same age as Toness and Lavess. I could only imagine what was going to happen when our daughters shared their story with Sherry’s daughters. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Cassida met us as we walked into the lab on Lo One. “I need a tissue sample to see if I can set up the extraction, before we put them in the chamber.”

Jeeter didn’t look like she was comfortable with the idea of what we intended to do with her. I guess her treatment on the penal colony didn’t give her much faith in other races. Humans could be cruel to the extreme when they had the chance.

Bunny walked over to stand by Cassida. “I’m ready. What do I need to do?”

Cassida picked up a small cylinder off the lab bench and waved it down the front of Bunny. “Got it. Give me a second to see if I can separate the tracer from your cells.”

She slid the cylinder into a slot on the lab table as she turned to focus her attention on the monitor in front of her. Her fingers were running over a keyboard as she was talking. “Nice tracer. It integrated with the cells of the host. It’s mineral, not biological. Let me match up with the atomic structure and... Got it!”

She turned back to look at Bunny. “It’s gonna hurt, but I can remove it.”

“We are wasting time. Let’s get it done.” Bunny gave Jeeter a quick glance as she mentally prepared herself.

Cassida pointed toward a large cylinder with a door in the side. “It will be easier if you aren’t wearing anything when we do this.”

Bunny didn’t hesitate as she dropped her clothes and her weapons before stepping into the chamber. The door silently slid shut behind her, as Cassida was playing with her keyboard.

In all my time with the Pash I had never seen the Field Portal. At this moment, I was glad I'd never had a need. It looked clinical. I would swear the cylinder Bunny had stepped into looked like it disappeared for a second before it reappeared.

The door slid open and Bunny looked like she was in shock. Toni was there to pick her up and carry her over to a couch. She lay there with her eyes open, not focusing for several seconds before she blinked and a soft moan of anguish escaped from her lips.

“Bunny?” Jeeter reached out to hold Bunny’s hand.

Bunny focused her eyes on Jetter. “Are you sure?”

Jeeter looked relieved, as she shook her head. “Yes, I’m sure. How do you feel?”

“Best damn ride I ever took in my whole life. Ever step into a blender?” She sat up and looked around. “Wonder if they got all the parts put back in the right order?”

Jeeter looked over at me with those big doe eyes of hers. “Guess that means it’s my turn, huh?”

“Only if you want, Jeeter. You don’t have to do this.” I could see that Jeeter wasn’t too sure about walking into a Field Portal.

Jeeter was pulling off her weapons and clothes. “If Bunny can handle it, I can handle it. We go as a team.”

She stepped up in front of Cassida and turned to look at me. “No matter what, thanks for pulling us out of that penal colony.”

Cassida nodded, as she ran the cylinder down the front of Jeeter. “I got it. Anytime you are ready, step into the chamber.”

“I’ll never be ready, but sometimes one has to go on blind faith. I would have followed Bill Wickman to the ends of the galaxy if he had asked. He was an okay guy.” Jeeter took a deep breath as she stepped into the chamber.

There was a soft hum and lights started flashing on Cassida’s control panel. “Hold on. The tracer is pulling pieces of her cells along with them as it is removed.”

Toni moved up beside Cassida. “Put her back together with the tracer if it’s not possible to remove it without killing her.”

“I’m trying, Toni. I never pulled tracer out of a Hespa before. Her cellular makeup is really something.” Cassida was working furiously with the touch screen under her fingers.

“Catch her, Toni.” The door to the chamber opened up. Jeeter was falling.

Toni easily caught her in his arms and carried her over to the examination table. “Is she okay?”

It scared me that we might have killed Jeeter. Her thin membrane eye covers were halfway down over her eyes. She looked dead. “Jeeter? Cassida, is she alright?”

Bunny moved up beside Jeeter. She was taking quick glances from me to Jeeter, wondering if her friend was dead?

Cassida shut down the Field Portal, picked up the body scanner, and walked over where Jeeter was lying on the table. She waved the scanner over Jeeter. “She’s regenerating. Her species is capable of growing new cells, along with arms and legs if something happens. I went ahead and removed the tracer from her system. Now she is rebuilding cells that were damaged.”

Cassida laid down the scanner. “It will take a day or two for her to regain consciousness. I’ll stay with her. All the rest of you can go on.”

Bunny shook her head. “I’m staying.”

“Bunny, time is essential. If Cassida says Jeeter is okay, I would bet my life she was okay. You need to be briefed about the situation. Toni is going to teach you how to drive a Pash Star Cruiser. You can’t spend months traveling between planets if all you have is a few days to get the job done.” I knew time was our enemy at the moment. Bunny needed to be working, not holding a sick friend’s hand.

She looked up in surprise. “We get a Pash Star Cruiser?”

Toni nodded. “It seems to be the only option. I don’t think any of those Earth Alliance ships will work for what we need.”

“Jeeter, pull yourself together girl. We get to drive a Pash Star Cruiser. Come on, girl. You don’t want to miss this one.” Bunny was picking up her clothes and weapons from where she had dropped them.

The Trag always met us in numbers of four, or any multiple of four. They never met us with an odd number of Trag. I had never seen three, or five, or one. It was always four or multiples of four. This time was no different. We met them and there were four Trag. It was also always just Trag. They didn’t have names.

“You wish for us to supply these with bio- cutters also? You said we could not send the DNA to the humans, since it would be reason for war. DNA has no other purpose than design. The bio-cutters you request only work on humans. Do you wish to start a war now?” The Trag was addressing Toni.

“We have a plan, but we need help. We explained the plan to them and they agreed.” Toni nodded toward Bunny and Jeeter. “We wish to prevent a war, not start one. We only wish to infect the ones who are trespassing in the Trag galaxy, not the whole human population. Also, we wish for those who are infected to be infertile, not fertile. Is it possible?”

“Must discuss this in conference.” The Trag was moving away.

“You don’t have time to discuss this in conference. Time is a luxury we don’t have. It has to be immediately.” Toni took a step after the Trag.

It stopped and the other three Trag moved up where they were touching one another. A moment later it stepped away from the group. “We agree to the request. We will have the bio-cutters you desire in four hours.”

Toni looked back at Bunny and Jeeter. “This is the last chance to leave, and go back to your old way of life. The Trag will make the bio-cutters for us. You aren’t human and it won’t affect either of you. The Trag are very good at what they do in bio-science.”

Jeeter looked over at Bunny. “Do we trust them? What keeps them from using us as one of their lab specimens?”

Toni glanced over at the Trag. “Their word. They haven’t learned the art of lying. They are as close to black and white as you will ever find. They either give their word, or they don’t. I’m sure after they have been dealing with humans for a few thousand years they will figure out what lying is.”

Bunny nodded. “I’m game.”

Jeeter shook her head. “I like the idea of driving that Pash Star Cruiser. Die now, die later. I guess what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. I’m in.”

I realized at that moment what a symbiotic relationship animals and plants have in life. No matter how intelligent we think we are, we will always need one another. The Trag had knowledge that would jump human science ahead by a thousand years. Humans had knowledge that would jump Trag exploration ahead by a thousand years. I was wondering if I was going to see a sharing of knowledge, or the end of a species. A Galactic War was coming, unless we could stop it.

Our daughters were already hard at work mapping out the illegal settlements. Sherry’s girls demanded to go along when they found out what Toness and Lavess were up to. In a way, I guess it was as safe as staying home. There wasn't any ship in any galaxy capable of catching a Pash Star Cruiser.

It was time to set up a meeting with the President of the Earth Alliance. We were going to see if negotiations could stop this madness before it sucked us all into a war. The treaty was clear enough. No trespassing in the Trag galaxy. Humans had a nasty history of making treaties and then breaking them when it suited them.

We discussed our plans with the Trag. They weren’t willing to go along on a meeting with the Earth Alliance. They didn’t trust humans. I gave that some thought as we headed back to the ship. I didn’t trust humans either, and here I was going into the lion’s den. Not only that, but I was going to drag Toni and my best friend along with if we could catch up with her. I desperately needed Sherry to be there when we talked to the Earth Alliance. Time was our worst enemy. The initial thirty days the Trag gave us to get rid of the trespassers was grinding along at a definite pace.

Two days later we had a diplomatic meeting set up with the Earth Alliance. Our first stop was to pick up Sherry.

"You broke the treaty." I was talking to a group of men who were sitting on a dais or platform. It seemed humans had the idea that, if they raised themselves above those who questioned their judgment, the humans were automatically superior in intelligence and power. Where do they get ideas like that? Dumb!

"They were murdering settlers and traders." The man in the front center responded. He was sitting at the peak of a pyramid seating arraignment for the group of twenty-one black robed men I was facing.

"Your settlers and traders were nothing more than pirates and thieves who deserved to die...,"

"THAT IS BLASPHAMY!" The man on my far right shouted at me, as he glared hatred and pulled himself up in self-rightness indignation.

I stepped up to the banister and leaned across it as I studied the men in front of me. "It is the truth. The Earth Alliance made a treaty with the Trag. That was and is a treaty all of you were party to. You agreed you would not allow human settlement in the Trag galaxy. Nor would you steal from them, or allow their laws, if broken by humans, to go unpunished." If these men thought their black robes, their higher perch, or their condescending attitude intimidated me in the slightest, sadly they were in gross error of judgment. But then, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. An error in their judgment was what brought us to this situation. They were human and thought all life forms were lesser quality than themselves.

The man in the middle was the President of the Earth Alliance. He looked to his right and left for support and agreement from his cabinet. When they all nodded their heads, I almost laughed. They were nothing more than a bunch of yes-men.

Lucus, stared down at me as if he could scare me with his demeanor. "We have to protect our settlers and traders. Settlers have built on Rious Six and several other planets in the Trag galaxy. They have a right to be...,"

Shaking my head, I stepped away from the group of men. "You admit by your own words, settlers are in the Trag galaxy. THEY HAVE NO RIGHT! Your treaty with the Trag, signed twenty one years ago, was explicit in its language. No human would settle in the Trag galaxy or any galaxy of their allies. You have allowed the pirates and thieves to violate that treaty time and time again."

I sighed in disgust as I shook my head. "Your greed for what does not belong to you is unbelievable. You hope to start a war with the Trag under the guise that you are protecting legitimate lives."

The men looked shocked when I pointed my finger at each of them individually. "You think you are immune to war, as you sit so far from it inside the center of human expansion to the stars. I have met you before."

"We have never...," Lucus started to protest.

"We have met. You are all the same. The names and faces change, but you are the same. You make treaties as long as it suits you, and break them when you want. The treaty with the Trag was more for the salvation of humanity than it was to protect the Trag from the exploitation of humans. Their human coded DNA virus is not reversible and spreads like a plague once it is released. That treaty was to keep the Trag from using the DNA virus code on...,"

"I would think, you would be the last one to defend the Trag. Are you not a product of their experiment?" Lucus interrupted.

"I thank God for that. At least I'm a little less human because of their virus."

That brought a collective gasp and looks of disdain from the assembly. Lucus smirked. "You are a freak. Nothing more than a whore. You are an abomination of life."

Toni was on my right and the Sherry was on my left. I could sense their hatred as they started to pull their phasers.

'No!' was my mind thought to both of them

I smiled at Lucus. "Thank you for proving my point. I am a lot of things. I am Pash by marriage. I am a woman ordained by the powers of life. I was born human by mistake."

I could sense their hatred building toward me. I held up my right hand to silence their murmurings. "Please, allow me to finish. A whore I am not. I have taken one mate for life. That is the Pash part of me. I could never love another as long as I live."

Sighing unconsciously, I held out my petite hand and looked at the long sharp fingernails. "An abomination? I guess I'm that in some eyes."

I looked up at Lucus as I rested my hands on those abundant hips I was blessed with. "What I am, or what I am not, is immaterial. You must respect the treaty with the Trag. If you do not pull those pirates and thieves out in twenty two of your earth days, they will be killed."

"YOU DARE NOT KILL..." Lucus was glaring at me.

"I DO DARE, AND I MOST CERTANLY WILL, IF THE TRAG ASK FOR THE PASH FOR HELP TO ENFORCE THE TREATY YOU SIGNED!" I already knew Lucus was not going to pull those pirates out. He was going to let them die, in order to start a war with the Trag and their allies. It was part of human nature to sacrifice a few lives for greed, as long as the life sacrificed wasn't their own. In this case it would serve a double purpose. A few pirates would die, which meant the Earth Alliance would rid itself of a few vermin. Getting rid of something they wanted to eliminate anyway could start a war, and the Pash would be doing the housecleaning if necessary.

"HOW DARE YOU THREATEN EARTH ALLIANCE! We will not be intimidated by your threats. Do not get in a war you can not win. We will crush the Pash as easily as we will the Trag if you allow the Pash to get involved in this. If one of our settlers dies, then the Earth Alliance will declare war, be it against the Trag, the Pash or any of their allies stupid enough to engage in war with the Trag." Lucus looked for support from his yes men after he glared hatred at me.

We were at war. It may have not been declared yet, as a declaration of war had yet to be announced. But..., make no mistake about it, Lucus was determined to let the pirates and thieves break the treaty. Lucus wanted humans to settle into Trag territory for the abundance of natural wealth and Trag gene coding knowledge they had found there.

I could read their mind thoughts. There was no reasoning with Lucus or his kind. They didn't care about sacrificing lives for riches of territory, science, and personal wealth. They were sure the war would never touch them. They could walk in and collect the spoils of war when it was over.

What he was thinking was as old as mankind itself. Sherry could read mental thought and was also good as a seer. She was also a product of human genetic cloning. She had told me to research American History before our meeting with the Earth Alliance. I did, and it made me sick to my stomach as I read what the white man had done to the Indians. The white man made treaties and broke them faster than they could be written. The Indians believed a word or treaty was a bond to never be broken. The Indian would die before he broke a treaty. Yet, with each new broken and remade treaty, the white man used to it as an excuse to push the Indians off more and more of their land. Treaties were broken time and time again by the white settlers as it suited them, and lined their pockets with wealth.

It was unbelievable that the Indians could be so trusting after one treaty was broken. Yet, trust they did, and they did it time and time again, until there was no land left to push the Indians from unless they were exterminated. And yes, I'm ashamed of my human part to say that we even tried that as the women and children were butchered in their villages, by surprise attacks from the Calvary, as one more treaty was broken. I guess I should have never read the historical records about Black Kettle and Custer. It made me sick to think I was born of man.

Sherry had foretold this meeting. It would not stop a war with the Earth Alliance. I knew she was probably right, but I had to try anyway. The greed of these men to take what didn't belong to them, and their complete lack of compassion for those they were willing to let die to achieve their goals, still shocked me.

Toni was also my husband. All Pash could read mind thought. I acquired that ability after giving birth to our two daughters. It was one of their many gifts to me as I carried them from conception to birth. Their Pash genes mixed with my human genes as they grew inside me. Unlike all those who had married and bore children to Pash before Sherry and me, we did not morph to look like Pash during motherhood. I regretted that because the Pash were of the feline family. They looked human enough, except they were all slim, sleek creatures, with the strength of cats.

I would never be slim and trim. Lucus had been right when he said I was a product of the Trag virus. Sherry had also been infected by that virus. We were always going to look like the poster, pinup babes for any Traders Post frequented by pirates and thieves. That was the result of the Trag virus. It was an ironic twist of fate. At one time I had wished for nothing more than to wipe out the Trag civilization for what they had done to me. Now I was defending them. I was willing to give my life to save their universe from Lucus and those like him.

One other feature separated the Pash from humans. They had yellow cat eyes with vertical pupils they could dilate at will. Those eyes could see quite well in the dark where humans couldn't.

"Lucus, you are not looking at the whole picture and this war will...,"

"You will address me by proper title. I am the President of the Earth Alliance. Address me as Mr. President when you speak to me." Lucus glared daggers at me for my infraction of formality.

I started to laugh and caught myself. "If formality is what you wish then I strongly suggest you address me by my formal title."

He blinked, as he stared first at me and then at Sherry and Toni. "I see. Well..., you can give yourself any title you want, but it's so trite as to be of no importance to the Earth Alliance."

"No!" again I had to tell Toni and Sherry, with mind thought, this was not the time to pull their weapons to defend my honor

I was wishing I had worn Battle Dress to this meeting. Alas, it was too late for wishing. My attire was a blue gown, long sleeves, floor length hem, and a cathedral length train. The gown looked like flowing blue waters, embroidered in intricate detail with blue stones that sparkled like star reflections off that water. My spiral earrings were blue stone and tinkled with the slightest movement. I was wearing five inch pumps, with a stiletto heel. My brown hair softly fell across my shoulders and cascaded down my back ending at my hips. I was wearing a blue crystal crown and carried a jeweled dagger on my left hip.

As my council, Sherry was similarly attired. Her flowing gown was soft sea foam green, no train. Her earrings were crystal spirals, soft green in color. Although she was Queen of her Clan, she was not wearing her crown at this meeting. She did have a sword on her left hip and a blaster on her right. Space travel and any meeting were not to be taken lightly. Even a diplomatic meeting such as this one.

"Mr. President, if you do not respect my title, I can not respect yours. You may address me as 'Your Majesty' or you may address me as 'Your Highness'. My title may also be addressed as 'My Queen' if you like." I knew mister uppity up was not going to address me as anything beside 'whore' or 'abomination'.

Lucus's face turned beet red as he struggled to choke down addressing me as anything besides scum. "I am President of the Earth Alliance. I do not lower myself to bow or scrape to any whore."

"NO!" Quickly I glance over at Toni and then Sherry.

Sherry glanced at me as she sent me a thought message. 'He is a disease begging to be eradicated-----Let me help him succeed'

'Killing him will accomplish nothing-----he will be replaced by the next one who is as bad-----my honor is not worth dying over-----we will not lower ourselves to his level of intelligence' I thought back to her and Toni.

"Lucus...,"

Lucus stared down at me from his seat. "That is, Mr. President, you freak. You will address me by my proper title."

I stepped up and put my hands over the railing separating us from Lucus and his council. "Lucus, you do not know what you have done by refusing to remove the trespassers from Trag boundaries. This war will come all the way back to you. You and your bloodthirsty band of miscreants will see blood. I promise, your blood will be mixed in with those pirates and thieves you so willingly defend for a few pieces of gold."

Stepping back sadly, I shook my head in pity at those who were no more than pawns in this sordid mess. The front line troops would be the first to be sacrificed. Then millions more troops would be poured into a battle the humans could not win. “Please pull all animal life forms out of the Trag galaxy, or war will be upon your head.”

I thought Lucus was mad before. I had misjudged. His face turned purple as he exploded. "YOU CAN NOT THREATEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE EARTH ALLIANCE. GUARDS! ARREST THIS WHORE AND HER WHORING ESCORTS!"

UF-2 BOOK 2 CHAPTER 7
BY BARBIE LEE
EDITED BY CATHERINE LINDA MICHEL

So, we come to the end of Book 2, Seeds Of War. Will our heroes and heroines be able to avert was with the Earth alliance, or will there be a space battle the likes of which would curdle even E.E. 'Doc' Smith's sensibilities? This chapter is a bit more violent than previous ones so be prepared. Also, a new player enters the game. Who is it? Who are they? Only the author knows. Strap in, settle back and get ready for ACTION!

FROM BEFORE: "Stepping back sadly, I shook my head in pity at those who were no more than pawns in this sordid mess. The front line troops would be the first to be sacrificed. Then millions more troops would be poured into a battle the humans could not win. “Please pull all animal life forms out of the Trag galaxy, or war will be upon your head."

I thought Lucus was mad before. I had misjudged. His face turned purple as he exploded. "YOU CAN NOT THREATEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE EARTH ALLIANCE. GUARDS! ARREST THIS WHORE AND HER WHORING ESCORTS!"

And NOW...

 

The guard on Toni's right was swinging his rifle off his shoulder. Toni's reflexes were a hundred times faster. Toni pulled his sword off his left hip with his right hand and cut the man in half. I reached over my back for a sword that would only be there for me. Toni had already turned and shot one of the guards by the door before I had laid my hand on the Queen's Sword.

Sherry had her sword out and swinging as the guard to her left was bringing his weapon to bear on her. She stepped up with her right foot to face him as she brought her sword up. She caught the guard in the middle as she swept up with the blade. She split him open from bottom to top.

I wanted Lucus to taste what he had started as I leapt forward bringing my sword over my head from between my shoulder blades where I had retrieved it. A shield screamed as sparks lit up the assembly room when my sword smashed into the force field guarding the president and his council. A hole formed in the force field around my blade, refilled, formed again, and then the field collapsed as the room was plunged into total darkness.

Toni fired his blaster again and another guard died. By this time, Sherry had her blaster in her left hand and she fired at where the president had been.

Unless the humans had special gear for seeing in the dark, they were lost. Sherry and I could see in the dark as well as Toni. It was part of the blessing our daughters had given us as we carried them in our womb and shared life forces.

The president and his council had dropped down through a lift under their seats when the shield had been activated. In the time it took for my sword to collapse the shield they had fled the massacre they had started.

"TO THE SHIP!" I wanted to pursue the President, and kill him in the worst possible way, but it was too late for that. In my mind I could feel them speeding away on a transport as I spoke.

"FOLLOW ME!" Toni shot two more soldiers who had blindly and stupidly run into the room.

We were in the hall running for our ship parked two blocks away in a VIP dock. Alarms were now going off and a security door slammed shut at the end of the hallway. I could hear them slamming shut behind us as well.

"MY TURN!" I swung my sword into the door. There was a flash of light as it disappeared.

"Gotta get me one of them swords." Sherry laughed as we fled through the opening where a door used to be.

Toni pushed me to my right as he dodged left. A blaster shot plastered the end of the hall in front of us. Toni spun and fired in the direction we had escaped from. He fired twice more before he turned to follow Sherry and me down the hall in the direction of our ship.

There was no doubt, Toni would have already been at the ship if Sherry and I had not slowed him. I was wishing with all my heart I had morphed, with the gestation of our daughters, to look like a Pash like all the other mothers, but it was not ordained. By the laws of physics, Sherry and I were not designed for running fast. We were also not dressed for battle. We did the best we could with our gowns and heels.

"Last door. Soldiers on the other side waiting by the ship. Six of them." Ahead of Sherry and me, Toni had reached the security door leading to the VIP dock.

"I sense them. Sherry and I will take the three on the right." I was swinging my sword at the door. Like the time before, there was a flash of light, and the door disappeared.

The soldiers were ready, but not that ready. I guess they expected it to take a few seconds for the door to melt from blaster fire. The Queen's Sword caused molecular collapse. A good way of explaining it would be to say anything it touched turned into a black hole. Of course objects I was slicing through could not sustain a black hole as there was not enough collapsed matter in the center. The matter collapsed in on itself, couldn't hold in that form, and rebounded back out as light, X-rays, gamma rays, and a whole host of other energy particles.

The soldiers never stood a chance. Toni was by my left side when the security door disappeared. Sherry was in lock step right behind me. Toni fired three times as I caught a blaster shot with my sword. Sherry fired twice and I trapped another blaster shot. Toni took care of the last soldier.

It was a waste of life. They were defending a tyrant when they were thinking democracy. Why does human history repeat itself over and over and over? Are humans that stupid or is it a karma they carry? We were at the ship when I screamed. “NO WAIT!

Toni yanked back his hand before he touched the ship. “Force field. I sense it too.”

“They set up a shield around the ship. Let me see if I can collapse it without touching our ship.” I was sticking the point of the sword up close to the side of the starship.

“Careful, you touch our ship with that sword and we will walk home, and could you hurry? More soldiers are on the way.” Toni turned to guard our backs.

An eerie glow formed around our starship as I moved my sword in close to it. A black hole spread out from the tip of the sword half way around the ship as the sword swallowed the force field. Black holes could be formed from solid matter, as well as pure energy of a force field. There was a huge suction as the force field collapsed at the end of the sword. I thought we were all going to be swept in before there was a flash of light. The power generator for the force field had burned out, and the field collapsed.

“Toni!” I touched the side of the ship and a ramp flowed out of the ship while a door formed.

“GO! I’M RIGHT BEHIND YOU!” Toni fired twice down the hall leading from the meeting room.

I wrapped my skirt up in my left hand and sprinted up the ramp with Sherry right beside me. I hadn’t even made it inside when I screamed. “TONI, NOW!”

The flight console was in front of me. I glanced over my right shoulder to see Toni as he literally jumped into the ship. I slammed my hand down on the hatch control and the ramp flowed back into the side of the ship. The opening closed. The star map was up in front of me and I touched a star with my finger. The ship gave an unexpected shake.

“Did they trap us?” I was looking at an unfamiliar star map that generated in front of the flight console.

Toni had made his way up beside me. “I don’t know. Let me check.”

He slid down into the seat and pulled the console up in front of him. “No, we aren’t in the Earth’s dimension. I strongly suggest you find your seats. I have no idea where we are. They must have been trying to toss another force field over us and you jumped through it. It bounced us out in unexplored space.”

I was looking for my seat as Sherry took hers. “Great. And home is which direction and through how many dimensions?”

I looked over at Sherry hoping she could sense the way home with her seer abilities. “You sense anything? Got any ideas in that mind of yours?”

Sherry got real quiet, then shook her head. “I have no idea where we are, but we have company.”

“I have it.” Toni brought a starship up in the hologram. “Nothing I’ve seen before. Sherry are they friendly or hostile?”

“Neither. They are curious, wondering what we are doing.” Sherry had her eyes closed so the physical world wouldn’t distract her as she felt with her emotions for the other ship.

‘Permission to come aboard, Your Highness.’ Was in our minds. Obviously the life on the other starship had mind thought.

‘Our ship or your ship?’ Toni projected back.

‘Our ship is a lot bigger. Would you like to transport over?’

‘Sure.’ Was hardly out of Toni’s mind before all three of us were standing in a huge control center. I took a look and then a second and third look at our hosts. They were almost there. It was as if I was looking at a Will-O-Wisp. I couldn’t see through them, but they were not definite forms either.

One of them walked up in front of Toni and nodded. ‘Welcome aboard Your Highness. I sense uncertainty in your mind. Either this was an unplanned trip, or you are lost.’

He walked over to Sherry. ‘Ah, one who can see the future. An unexpected pleasure. Your Highness, welcome aboard.

Was Your Highness his normal greeting, or did he sense Toni and Sherry were heads of our clans? I was trying to puzzle out the question when he turned toward me. ‘It is difficult for me to verbalize, so I use mind thought. You carry the Queens Sword. You are Queen of the Pash. We know about the sword because we can see it. Many millennia back it was a gift to the Pash Queen. We also know of the seeds of war that are being sown between the human race and the Trag race.’

“Can you stop the war.” It was more natural for me to use my voice than my mind for conversation and sometimes I forgot.

‘We can not interfere. It has not been that long ago that you learned some things are ordained. The seeds of war may or may not produce fruit.’ He backed up and what I perceived as a female stepped up in front of me.

She held her hand. ‘May I see the Queens Sword?’

I reached over my back and brought it up in front of me. “If you touch it, it will destroy you.”

She reached out. ‘I am the sword designer. It will not hurt me.’

Holding out the sword with two fingers, I handed it to the woman. She took it in her hand and examined it. ‘It needs an adjustment. It has lost some power over the millennia. I will be right back.’

I didn’t have time to dispute her taking the sword. She was gone.

Another woman appeared in front of us. ‘I have programmed into your ship’s drives, the portals back to the Pash dimension. When you return to your ship it will take you home.’

Toni nodded his head. ‘Thank you for your help. You are most kind.’

The first woman reappeared with the sword. She held it out to me. ‘I do not believe you will have any more trouble collapsing any force fields. The molecular collapse should cause a wrap around effect as your sword touches the field.’

I took the sword and slid it over my back. Did she know about our escape from the Earth Alliance because they were there, or because she read our minds? I decided not to ask. “Thank you for all you have done for us.”

She held out her hand toward Sherry and a sword appeared. “I brought a gift for you also. If this war happens then you may find a need for this.”

Hesitantly Sherry took the sword. I could only imagine she was afraid it might not be adjusted to her body. She didn’t have to worry. The sword was in her hands and it didn’t make her disappear. “I do not have anything to offer in return besides my thanks.”

“You have the heart and conscience of honesty. That is enough.” The woman who handed Sherry the sword closed her eyes and nodded as she backed away

The woman looked around at Toni and Sherry. ‘You may stay if you want. The War would not reach you here.’

“No, it is our destiny for whatever happens, to try and prevent the war. If that’s not possible then we must support the Trag even if it means dying. Some causes are worth dying for. Dying for a just cause cannot be wrong.” I answered before Toni or Sherry had the chance.

‘As you wish.’

We were back on our own ship without that familiar flash of light when transported by beam. I looked around. “Toni?”

He gave the mental thought, ‘thank you’ before he reached up and touched the star map in front of his console. “We are home.”

I had a million questions about the life entities we had met. Our curiosity had to be put on the back burner, as war was looming larger and larger. Possibly several races could be wiped from history once the war commenced. The Pash were one of those who could become extinct.

Now it was a game of waiting to see if we were going to war, or not. I was positive Lucus wasn’t going to back down from declaring war with the Trag. He wanted their galaxy and he didn’t mind sending in a few billion innocent soldiers to die for his cause. And they would do it because their Commander in Chief said it was the right thing to do. All wars are insane! Good young men and women died needlessly for all the wrong reasons.

Sherry immediately left to contact the underground of the human population and their allies. Lucus would label them traitors and have them tortured and executed if he won this coming war. They really were putting their lives on the chopping block if war broke and the Trag and their allies didn’t win.

The Earth Alliance took in a huge number of non-human allies as the clouds of war became darker and darker. Everyone could smell the spoils of war. Planets, property, goods, land, and slaves could be had for the taking after a war of this magnitude.

The Trag had the Pash as allies and the underground movement on their side. It was nine days before the Trag ultimatum for all settlers to leave their galaxy when I met another plant intelligence as they gathered to support the Trag.

It was our daily trip to the Trag galaxy to try and negotiate a settlement to this madness. When Toni stopped the ship we were smack dab in the middle of millions of other unidentified ships. Shields on the alien ships immediately went up as one, and enough firepower focused in on us to make us a distant memory.

“What’s going on?” I was watching the monitor and it didn’t look good.

“I don’t know.” Toni called the Trag over the communicator. “Trag, this is Pash starship. Clarify the situation.”

“Pash, you are cleared. The Muvin have joined us.” Came back.

We beamed into the council building where we always met the Trag. I was looking at a life form there I had never seen. It reminded me of…? I had no idea. The body was round and red in color. There was no head or eyes, but it had a lot of limbs waving back and forth. I imagine it was sensing its environment with its branches or whatever. Not everything needed eyes to understand what was going on around them. What they did need was the ability to handle tools or objects if they were space travelers. This thing could do that with the snake like limbs it had. They also needed the ability to intake quantities of food if they were mobile. Then they needed the ability to think or reason if they were intelligent. I guess this thing could probably do that. They were driving starships, so they had to have something in the mental capability department as well. They also needed the ability to understand instruments. Driving a starship wasn’t done by sticking an arm out the window and feeling the air currents to see if one was headed in the right direction.

“Trag, do you have more allies? I would like to know in advance. The next ones might shoot us and then ask if we were on your side or not.” I stepped back from the Muvin as I had no idea if it understood we were not the enemy.

The Trag that stepped up to meet us turned one eye toward the Muvin. “The Muvin are not allies of the Trag. They join this war because their galaxy is not too distant. We stop the humans now, or the Muvin will find they have to fight alone when humans want their galaxy.”

I started to tell the Trag that was the exact definition of an ally, but thought better of it. The Trag had some unusual ideas about who was or wasn’t an ally. “How many ships did the Muvin put in space? Can they tell the difference between friend and foe? If it comes to war we will have many Earth Alliance ships fighting with the Pash and Trag. We certainly don’t want to have to defend ourselves from those who are fighting on our side.”

“Muvin put many ships in space.” The Trag answered, as it waved an arm toward the Muvin.

Sighing, I glanced over at Toni. “Make sure the computer does a ship count before we leave. There will be a bunch of Trag ships in there, but we can do a fair estimate if we subtract the number we have been checking the past week.”

“Sure, I was thinking of doing that already.” Toni beamed us back aboard our starship.

We found Jeeter and Bunny on Durus Nine. The large settlement where Toni and I had first landed, almost twenty days ago, was nearly deserted. The only life forms left were non-human. I was positive the Earth Alliance would find it tough sledding trying to defend illegal alien life forms instead of illegal humans.

If I hadn’t sensed it was Bunny, I would have never known it was she. She had changed her looks to those of a beautiful human female. I acknowledged her with a nod of my head. “You could have fooled me if I didn’t know you.”

“The pirates like this form. I use whatever is pleasing to them.” She had her hand resting on her phaser and it looked natural.

I was sure she had plenty of practice the way she casually carried herself. My attention was turned to Jeeter. “How’s it going?”

Jeeter shook her head. “Still have several colonies to visit yet. It would have been faster if Bunny and I had split up but it wasn’t safe. She watches my back and I watch hers. There is no honor among thieves. They will slit your throat, or doublecross you in a heartbeat if it suits them, or if they can see a profit in it.”

“Yeah, just like Earth Alliance.” I muttered under my breath.

“Captain, we need more time and more of those bio balls from the Trag. There are more pirates and claim jumpers than you estimated.” She held up an empty cylinder to show me.

“I guess you didn’t want to go back to the Trag and pick it up yourself? I can’t blame you. Probably a good idea. The Trag have allies and they are vegetable life forms also. I don’t know what the Muvin think of us. We need to set up a buffer between the Trag and Muvin ships and the other life forms that are joining in this war.” I took the cylinder from Jeeter. Toni and I would go back and get it refilled.

We tried to set up a meeting with Lucus and the Earth Alliance at a neutral location to stop this madness. It was to no avail. They never answered our request. I imagine there were a couple reasons they wouldn’t meet with us. They were afraid of an ambush like they tried on us, or they were gathering forces for the looming clouds of war.

Despite my prayers the final day arrived. To many of the Pash and a few billion humans, it was the final day of life. The Pash had been gathering in the Trag and Earth dimension for hours. My monitor was almost solid white with Pash starships. Toni and I kissed our daughters goodbye before beaming aboard a Star Destroyer. Pash Star Destroyers weren’t large ships, as they carried a compliment of twelve fire control stations. The energy those individual gun turrets were able to hurl was more than an Earth Alliance Battle Cruiser would be able to withstand. Their Star Destroyers wouldn’t be any safer. The problem was, they would outnumber us a hundred to one. How many shots can one take before we take one ourselves? The odds were against us surviving, no matter how powerful our weapons were.

I looked over at Toni and smiled. “I love you with all my heart. I have always loved you. Thank you for my life.”

Toni smiled. “Thank you for loving me. You are my life.”

“It’s time.” I reached up and touched a dot on the hologram in front of my console. Millions of Pash starships jumped distance and dimensions, as they were sync, locked with our ship.

“GOD HAVE MERCY!” Came from one of the hundreds of thousands of ships in front of us.

“Underground, this is the Pash. Please stand down and do not fire.” I wanted those ships to know we were not the enemy. Luckily, no one got trigger-happy on either side.

“Pash, where did you come from? You weren’t there a second ago.” “My god, my whole screen is filled with ships.” “I thought there were only a couple dozen Pash.” “Anyone able to count the number?” “Are all those ships Pash?” Came back from other ships scattered across space.

“Cut the chatter. The Trag and Muvin are moving up.” I could see hundreds of thousands of ships approaching from the Trag home planet.

“Trag, this is Pash. Did you get your screens in place?” I was hoping the Trag did their part. With our superior numbers, the Pash were going to take the brunt of the battle against the Earth Alliance. Those screens I was hoping were in place would bring the Earth Alliance ships to a halt, trapped in an electronic field the Trag had spread across space. The net would only work so long before the Earth Alliance figured it out and broke their ships free. Hopefully, in that short period of time, we could destroy most of them if things when as planned.

“Pash, Trag, net is in place.” Came back over the communicator.

“Pash, deploy to battle positions.” I could see a few hundred thousand ships approaching from the Earth Alliance. All the Pash ships disappeared off our scope. I knew if the Earth Alliance had seen them, they would think it was a blip on their screens and nothing more.

Our screen looked empty with only Trag, Muvin, and underground ships left on it. The Pash had moved back out of scanner range into battle groups. Five ships to a group, they would appear, pick targets, disappear, come back and do it over and over until they were either destroyed themselves, or the Earth Alliance and their allies were destroyed. War was for killing. A great man once said, “The idea is to not die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his.”

I switched to the Earth Alliance frequency. “Admiral Baker, this is Queen Brandy Winter of the Pash Escubanesa Clan. I am here with King Tonlosania of the Pash Escubanesa Clan. We wish a conference.”

“We have no need for conference, your Highness. We are here to protect the settlers. Back off, or face our guns.” Came back.

“Admiral Baker, are you in too big a hurry to engage in war you can’t spare a few minutes to talk? Are your men so eager to die that you can’t talk to King Tonlosania and me? I promise the war won’t go away, even if you take a few minutes longer to begin. Please, your men might like a few of those minutes to think about their families. Please give me the honor of meeting my opponent if for no other reason.” I was praying something I said got through to Baker.

“I heard what you did in the meeting with President Lucus. You tried to kill him under the guise of a meeting. I will not give you that opportunity with me.”

“On screen.” Immediately Admiral Baker came up on a hologram in front of me.

Admiral Baker did not look pleased as he stared back at me from across twenty thousand miles of space. “I am not going to let you try the same trick on me you did on President Lucus. This is a waste of time.”

“Admiral, Neither I, nor my mate, nor counsel started the fight when we were meeting with Lucus. If I had started that fight we wouldn’t be here discussing it. Lucus and his counsel would be dead. The only reason he’s alive is because we were caught off guard. It was us who were ambushed in that meeting. Think about it. We managed to fight our way out of the hall and back to our ship after Lucus ordered his men to arrest us. Do you honestly think we would kill the guards before killing Lucus if it had been us who started the fight? Would you in that kind of situation?”

Admiral Baker looked doubtful before he answered. “Don’t bring any weapons and you may come aboard.”

“Do we have your word as an officer and gentleman this is under a white flag of truce, and you won’t try the same trick Lucus tried?” I didn’t like the no weapons idea but if there was any way to halt this madness I was willing to give it a try. I was probably going to die anyway, so why not die trying to save a few billion lives?

He nodded in agreement. “You have my word. You may return to your ship after we talk.”

“Tell your gunners to stand down. We are going to approach.” I glanced over at Toni and he was slipping off his sword and phaser.

Admiral Baker turned his head to talk to someone across the deck. “First Officer, tell our gunners to stand down. We have a Pash Starship approaching.”

“Aye aye, Captain. Gunners, stand down, Pash Starship shall be allowed to pull up alongside.” Came from someone off the side of the view screen.

I waited a couple seconds as Admiral Baker turned to look at the screen. I was waiting to give him time for the command to get through to his gunners. “Are their fingers off the triggers? We move pretty fast. I don’t want to get shot by someone who had a twitch.”

“My men don’t twitch. You may approach.” Admiral Baker looked disgusted.

I glance over at Toni. “Beam our crew over to another ship in case his gunners are twitchy.”

“Not a chance.” He touched the red dot that was in the hologram. We were beside the Admiral’s Battleship the Missouri. Less than half a second later we were inside the control deck of the Missouri.

“Permission to come aboard, Admiral.” I was looking at Admiral Baker who looked shocked that we were already there.

“Holy sh... you don’t waste any time do you? You were twenty minutes away.” He blinked his eyes to make sure we weren’t hologram generated.

“Admiral, I asked to talk. Twenty one years ago your Earth Alliance signed a treaty with the Trag. The treaty stipulated there would be no humans or animal life allowed into the Trag Galaxy.” I handed Baker a copy of the treaty.

“This treaty is non-negotiable. If you declare war on the Trag for defending their rights in a treaty your own Earth Alliance signed, then you are no better than the pirates and slavers you are protecting. Lucus thinks this will be an easy victory and none of the blood letting will get back to soil him. He’s wrong. The Trag do not go by rules if a treaty is broken. If you start a war by defending the pirates and slavers, who have illegally settled into the Trag Galaxy, then there are no rules.” I could see Admiral Baker was an intelligent man, but how much he was willing to follow illegal orders, or how much he would take upon himself to follow a signed treaty, was anyone’s guess. The military drills into their men that they must follow orders, no matter what, and without question. If an officer doesn’t follow orders, then he can kiss his career goodbye.

Admiral Baker was looking at the treaty. “Captain Jaser, pull up a copy of this Earth Alliance treaty from our records.”

“Yes Sir.” The Captain to our right walked over to a seaman sitting in front of a console and repeated the command to pull up the treaty.

“Your Highness, you must convince the Trag there are rules to war. We are civilized and will treat prisoners decently. We will not harm civilians or non-combatants. We do not destroy cities needlessly. I’m sure you would be able to convince the Trag they need to follow the Global Convention.” Admiral Baker looked first at me and then at Toni.

Shaking my head, I looked Baker in the eyes. “Admiral, if you don’t honor a treaty, you have lost all honor and can not expect the other side to be honorable.”

I sighed as I thought about how humans had always wanted to fight wars. “Admiral, you are the first flotilla to arrive at the Trag Galaxy. There are millions of other ships headed this way at flank speed as we speak. We both know some of those ships will be arriving in a few days. Others, posted on the other side of the Earth Alliance settlements, will be traveling for over a year before they arrive.”

“This war will not be fought only here. It is going to be spread clear to the other side of human settlement. I can assure you with the first shot fired, Earth itself is going to be under attack. Those Earth Alliance ships on the other side of the universe are going to be destroyed before they even know they were in the war zone. Every human settlement is going to be attacked almost immediately. This is going to be the most ungodly war humanity ever started, and possibly the last, because the Trag and Pash don’t take lightly to someone signing a treaty and then breaking it because they feel like it.” I watched disbelief grow in Admiral Baker’s eyes.

“You wouldn’t...” He had never heard of such a thing and his mind couldn’t comprehend instant war across the spread of humanity.

“I would and so would the Trag, the Muvin, the Pash, and a dozen of their allies. Admiral, your wife’s name is Dee and your two sons are named Chris and Charles. The first shot will unleash a war you do not want. Your family will be victims of that war. It will reach all the way back to them. If you’re lucky, you will die and not realize what you have done if you persist in following illegal orders. You have been ordered to defend pirates and slavers who are breaking a treaty the Earth Alliance has signed. If you were following orders to enforce that treaty then you would be legally and morally right.” I was desperately praying somewhere, I was getting through to this man.

Captain Jaser handed a copy of the treaty to Admiral Baker. “Her copy is correct. Nothing was altered or changed on it.”

Admiral Baker studied the treaty and then looked it over again. “Have any new treaties been made?”

“No Admiral.” Captain Jaser shook his head.

“I see. Our orders are in direct violation of this treaty?” Admiral Baker sighed as he knew his decision could possibly end his career. “Are you really positioned to strike our convoys on the other side of the universe?”

For the first time I saw a chance of stopping this war before it started. “Yes, and everything in between. My King will give you a ride over and back if you like?”

Shaking his head, he smiled. “No, as much as I believe you, and I would like that ride, I would be deserting my post. Would humanity be wiped out?”

“I doubt it. Not completely. There would be a few isolated pockets of humans left. The Trag don’t take kindly to broken treaties. They would do their best to make sure humans were taken off the species list. Humans would lose any ability to travel in space. Any ship that lifted off a planet would be a target and that would be a pointer back to where other humans were. The Trag would eradicate any humans they found.”

Admiral Baker glanced over at Captain Jasper. I knew he was looking for support one way or another. “Admiral, President Lucus sent you out on a fool’s errand. He was thinking of this war costing a few thousand or a few million lives and then the Trag Galaxy would be his for the spoils. I promise you, it’s not a mouse you are fixing to swat. You are about to unleash a dragon and this dragon will have his revenge on every human.”

I really didn’t want humans to know the number of Pash they would be up against, but I was desperate to stop a war before it began. “My Lord, if it pleases you, bring up the Pash Starships.”

Toni nodded in agreement. “It is done.”

“HOLY MOTHER OF MARY!” Came from the helmsman.

Admiral Baker turned to look at why his helmsman had spoken out. “OH SHIT!” He was looking at a view screen that was almost pure white with ships scattered as far as the sensor could monitor. “Where did they come from?”

“They just appeared, Sir.” The helmsman was trying to decide if his monitor was being fed erroneous information.

“Admiral, what you are looking at is not a hologram. Those Starships are real and their weapons are lethal. Your shields are useless against their phasers because their phasers are in a different sync than your phasers or shields. One hit from one of their guns and your ship is history.”

“Please, for the love of God, for the lives of every man, woman, and child, do not enforce a broken treaty against the Trag. You will be signing the death warrant for all of humanity.” I was praying Admiral Baker had a little bit of self-initiative in him.

Again I turned to Toni. “My Lord, if it pleases, deploy our ships to battle position and be prepared to give the order that no quarters are to be given or taken.” I was praying a little bit of military protocol would jump start the Admiral’s mind. It was what he had been trained to follow all his life.

Toni was staring straight at the Admiral. “It is as ordered.”

The helmsman’s screen went blank except for a view of space. “They are gone.”

Turning to look at the view screen the Admiral had passed beyond shock. “Are they on the other side of the universe?”

“Some are. They have broken up into battle groups. Each group is following one of your flotillas, ready to wipe them out if my King gives the command.”

Admiral Baker glanced in Toni’s direction and I could tell what he was thinking. I shook my head. “Or if he stops communicating with them. Admiral, we communicate by mind thought. So do the Trag and most of the others who have joined this battle. They don’t need equipment or mechanical devices to talk to one another across space. This is what I was trying to explain to Lucus when he tried to have us imprisoned. The treaty the Earth Alliance signed with the Trag wasn’t to protect the Trag from humans, it was to protect humans from the Trag. The Trag were going to wipe out the human race before the Pash intervened on the behalf of humanity.”

I glanced at Captain Jasper. “This is one treaty you must defend with all your honor.”

Admiral Baker took a deep breath and sighed. “Please your Highness. Give my staff and me time to discuss this alone.”

I had no idea how old Admiral Baker was, but at that moment he looked to be five hundred years or more. “Certainly Admiral. My King.”

We were back aboard our Starship and just as quickly the ship was at the edge of their scanner range. Toni was studying me. “What are your feelings?”

I shook my head. “The Admiral believes me but he’s fighting with years of following orders without question. It depends upon how much backbone he has. He is an honorable man, but can he overcome his military training and make a career decision? It also depends on how many of his staff will support him.”

My years as Captain of outpost UF-2 had given me the knowledge of what Admiral Baker was going through. We were still waiting an hour later when Jeeter and Bunny’s ship showed up on our screen along with four Trag ships following along.

“Captain, the Trag have been counting noses and I think they are ready to give it more time.” Jeeter came over the communicator.

Looking over at Toni I was wondering if he was thinking the same thing? “Jeeter, has everyone left?”

“The humans have, Captain. What is left isn’t by choice. It’s non humans who are stranded without any ships to leave by.” Was Bunny’s reply.

As the Earth Alliance ships started moving my heart jumped up in my throat. Then we picked up a transmission. “Trag, this is the Commander of the Earth Alliance Space Fleet. We are here to pick up any trespassers in the Trag galaxy. We request permission to proceed.”

“Admiral Baker, this is Trag Alliance. You have one day to pick up those illegally in Trag galaxy.”

“I’m wondering if this is a trick?” I was looking at Toni. “Could be they want us to stand down and then they will attack?”

“We will wait to see. A few days waiting should be plenty.” He was double-checking his monitor for any extra ships from the direction of earth.

Jeeter pulled up beside us. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted.” I touched my console.

Jeeter and Bunny were standing inside our ship. Jeeter shook her head. “I love your transporter.”

She held out her hand toward me. “Your plan worked. We traded these things with the pirates and they did the rest.”

I was looking at the bio balls in her hand. “Changing all the human pirates into females desiring sex, not war, wasn’t exactly my idea. The Trag came up with the idea a long time ago.”

Bunny picked up a couple of the bio balls out of Jeeter’s hand. “Who would have thought a war could be fought and won with a few little things like this?”

I had to laugh. “The Trag are good at things like that. I imagine that was why Lucus and his cabinet didn’t want to meet with us. They were too busy with female problems. I gave them a dose of the same when I leaned over the banister to talk to them. The virus was a lot smaller and airborne as I let it slid out of my hands. Hopefully the new council and President they elect will honor the Trag treaty without the threat of war. I know human nature though, and I wouldn’t bank on it. Maybe the threat of visiting one of the Trag planets as male and leaving as female will keep the pirates and trespassers away?”

Jeeter nodded in agreement. “I imagine it will. Big, strong, tough pirates don’t want to change into sex starved female nymphomaniacs. I hope the Trag haven’t come up with a virus for my species.”

“Who said they haven’t?” I winked at Toni as I answered Jeeter.

I thanked God no one died in an insane war that day. It was funny that a little thing the size of a bb could divert a war. Did the life forms that handed Sherry a Queen’s Sword know what had happened? I was curious to find them again.

FROM THE EDITOR: I know that this seems like a cliffhanger, but this is the very last bit that Barbie sent me. IF there is any more, I will get it up and posted ASAP. Both Barbie and I want to thank ALL the commenters, those who left kudos, and those who send private messages. We REALLY appreciate your input and corrections that you suggest. YOU readers are the reasons why writers write and post stuff for free on sites like this one, and on behalf of all the great authors here and on other sites,we thank you, from our hearts.